HydrogenAudio

CD-R and Audio Hardware => Vinyl => Topic started by: SoAnIs on 2008-03-05 09:20:08

Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: SoAnIs on 2008-03-05 09:20:08
24-bit precision gives you about 16.77 million values. Assuming a total groove width of 50 x 10^-6m, the maximum movement of the cutter is physically bounded at about half that. Much more and the cutter will be in the space for an adjacent groove.  Thus, 50 microns width divided by 16.77 million gives us about 3 x 10^-12m, i.e. ~0.03 angstroms.

The diameter of a hydrogen atom is 1.0 angstroms (1 x 10^-10m). That would make the resolution of a 24-bit digital signal equivalent to an analog cutter whose resolution is just about 1/30 the width of a hydrogen atom. Sadly, this seems to be physically impossible, as none of the particles smaller than atoms are stable enough to be used in records.

Of course, records aren't made of hydrogen, they're made of the polymer pvc. One molecule of pvc is about 100,000 angstroms. This means that, if the cutters were actually removing single pvc molecules the vinyl records would have about 11 bits of resolution. Sadly, they don't get even that precise, though I'm not sure the actual precision. To get down to a record made of hydrogen atoms (possible under very low temp/very high pressure I suppose) one would need 19 bits. Anything beyond that is useless as long as the laws of physics hold.

Therefore, all other things being equal, digital is superior to vinyl. That said, mastering on CDs is often terrible while the mastering on records is often made somewhat better. This varies from CD to CD and record to record, and CDs are technologically far superior to records.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: digital on 2008-03-05 11:33:48
Dig that crazy math man!  Speaking as a huge vinyl fan; you're absolutely right!  As much as I really love the LPs, funky sleeve notes and great graphic cover art - I'll take CD every time if given a choice of which ‘sounds better’ – mastering / productions caveats aside.

Andrew D.
www.cdnav.com
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: pdq on 2008-03-05 12:11:01
Not to be too nit-picky, but vinyl records aren't cut directly but are molded from a metal master, so the limit would be the diameter of a metal atom, which is much smaller than 100,000. Also, if they were cut directly in vinyl, the cutter needn't remove whole molecules but would readily break bonds as needed to remove part of a molecule.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Nick.C on 2008-03-05 12:22:05
Not to be too nit-picky, but vinyl records aren't cut directly but are molded from a metal master, so the limit would be the diameter of a metal atom, which is much smaller than 100,000. Also, if they were cut directly in vinyl, the cutter needn't remove whole molecules but would readily break bonds as needed to remove part of a molecule.
But the metal master has to have been created in some way....
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Jens Rex on 2008-03-05 12:29:33
Best first post in years.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: pdq on 2008-03-05 17:19:02
Not to be too nit-picky, but vinyl records aren't cut directly but are molded from a metal master, so the limit would be the diameter of a metal atom, which is much smaller than 100,000. Also, if they were cut directly in vinyl, the cutter needn't remove whole molecules but would readily break bonds as needed to remove part of a molecule.

But the metal master has to have been created in some way....

Indeed, and that's where the diameter of a metal atom comes in.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-03-05 17:39:15
But the contact area of the stylus covers many thousands of molecules, and PVC deforms elastically. So the actual traced waveform could have a resolution that is considerably more accurate than that implied by the size of a "single" PVC molecule, at the expense of some time resolution (which due to tracing distortion really isn't there anyway).

What exactly is a "single" PVC molecule, anyway? PVC is a chain polymer. It might be 100000A on its long axis, but each member of the chain is what, H3C2Cl? That can't be more than 50A. So even ignoring the contact area argument, you may be off by a few orders of magnitude on the size calculations.

I'm all for bashing vinyl, and I agree that you're unlikely to get more than 12 bits out, but I think this math is too sloppy to support that.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: pdq on 2008-03-05 18:27:30
But the contact area of the stylus covers many thousands of molecules, and PVC deforms elastically. So the actual traced waveform could have a resolution that is considerably more accurate than that implied by the size of a "single" PVC molecule, at the expense of some time resolution (which due to tracing distortion really isn't there anyway).

What exactly is a "single" PVC molecule, anyway? PVC is a chain polymer. It might be 100000A on its long axis, but each member of the chain is what, H3C2Cl? That can't be more than 50A. So even ignoring the contact area argument, you may be off by a few orders of magnitude on the size calculations.

I'm all for bashing vinyl, and I agree that you're unlikely to get more than 12 bits out, but I think this math is too sloppy to support that.

PVC consists of alternating CH2 and CHCl units, so in theory when cutting through the vinyl molecule you could cut to this small a unit by severing the molecule at a C-C bond. In reality none of this matters because the cutting is actually done on a metal master and not the vinyl.

Edit: SOME masters are cut directly into metal, but most are cut into lacquer-coated metal.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-03-05 19:03:04

But the contact area of the stylus covers many thousands of molecules, and PVC deforms elastically. So the actual traced waveform could have a resolution that is considerably more accurate than that implied by the size of a "single" PVC molecule, at the expense of some time resolution (which due to tracing distortion really isn't there anyway).

What exactly is a "single" PVC molecule, anyway? PVC is a chain polymer. It might be 100000A on its long axis, but each member of the chain is what, H3C2Cl? That can't be more than 50A. So even ignoring the contact area argument, you may be off by a few orders of magnitude on the size calculations.

I'm all for bashing vinyl, and I agree that you're unlikely to get more than 12 bits out, but I think this math is too sloppy to support that.

PVC consists of alternating CH2 and CHCl units, so in theory when cutting through the vinyl molecule you could cut to this small a unit by severing the molecule at a C-C bond. In reality none of this matters because the cutting is actually done on a metal master and not the vinyl.


And the vinyl is pressed, not cut.

The metal master is not cut, either, the lacquer is cut, then plated, and then the plated master is cast, and turned into a stamper, and then that presses the actual vinyl.

While I'm not a huge fan of LP either, the OP is actually too dismissive, but only a little.  Left out is surface noise (it's a physics thing, you have to have it), elastic deformation, plastic deformation, mistracking, the effects of equalization ...
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: SoAnIs on 2008-03-06 02:13:25
True, I simplified a lot. But, as I also showed, even if you could get it down to angstrom resolution you would still only have the equivalent of 19 bit audio. I ignored surface noise and such because it made the calculation easier, not because it was accurate. Since it makes things less accurate my calculations make it seem a bit better than it is.

The real point is that, physically, there is no such thing as analog. You can't (easily) move less than 1 atom, you can't detect changes that small with a needle (well, a STM can, but that's a very different needle) and thus digital truly can be equivalent to vinyl. Everything is quantized, so with enough bits of data stored anything can be accurately digitized up to the point where the uncertainty principle begins to matter.

That said, vinyl has big album art. NIN recently offered some good extras with their newest album, but I'm waiting for more artists to offer digital downloads + shipping you a poster/lyrics book/etc instead of trying to cram it into a CD jewel case.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Vitecs on 2008-03-06 07:46:39
The real point is that, physically, there is no such thing as analog. You can't (easily) move less than 1 atom, you can't detect changes that small with a needle

To be correct, needle movement is analog. Medium is not, but if we think of tracking needle, not groove per se. So we're always end up with interpolation here when decreasing time delta to get to the "fraction" of molecula.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: tgoose on 2008-03-06 10:12:35
The real point is that, physically, there is no such thing as analog. You can't (easily) move less than 1 atom, you can't detect changes that small with a needle

To be correct, needle movement is analog. Medium is not, but if we think of tracking needle, not groove per se. So we're always end up with interpolation here when decreasing time delta to get to the "fraction" of molecula.

Well OK, but that's no different in result to the reconstruction filter in a DAC; it's still using "quantised" information to create a smoothed out signal.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: SebastianG on 2008-03-06 14:31:34
Hello, SoAnIs!

There's one point I'm missing here. The signal coded on a vinyl disc is time-continous and not time-discrete. That means that any "molecule error" spreads over a very large frequency range. The audible band is only a small subset of it. So, without the knowledge about the noise's PSD it's difficult to estimate the signal-to-noise ratio you'll get after filtering out everything above 20 kHz.

Still, it's a fun thought experiment.

Cheers,
SG
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: A Dawg on 2008-06-03 04:58:09
24-bit precision gives you about 16.77 million values. Assuming a total groove width of 50 x 10^-6m, the maximum movement of the cutter is physically bounded at about half that. Much more and the cutter will be in the space for an adjacent groove.  Thus, 50 microns width divided by 16.77 million gives us about 3 x 10^-12m, i.e. ~0.03 angstroms.

The diameter of a hydrogen atom is 1.0 angstroms (1 x 10^-10m). That would make the resolution of a 24-bit digital signal equivalent to an analog cutter whose resolution is just about 1/30 the width of a hydrogen atom. Sadly, this seems to be physically impossible, as none of the particles smaller than atoms are stable enough to be used in records.

Of course, records aren't made of hydrogen, they're made of the polymer pvc. One molecule of pvc is about 100,000 angstroms. This means that, if the cutters were actually removing single pvc molecules the vinyl records would have about 11 bits of resolution. Sadly, they don't get even that precise, though I'm not sure the actual precision. To get down to a record made of hydrogen atoms (possible under very low temp/very high pressure I suppose) one would need 19 bits. Anything beyond that is useless as long as the laws of physics hold.

Therefore, all other things being equal, digital is superior to vinyl. That said, mastering on CDs is often terrible while the mastering on records is often made somewhat better. This varies from CD to CD and record to record, and CDs are technologically far superior to records.



As far as I know there are an an infinite amount of numbers between the number 1 and the number 2. But I guess you could measure the amount of pixels in film if you measured each ray of light.


If you are recording digitally the the bit depth would measure how high or low the wave is at any given sample. 16 bit, if I am not mistake, only has 9 values in either direction. What I don't understand is why people think 9 is good enough to say any more is a waste.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: saratoga on 2008-06-03 06:10:57
As far as I know there are an an infinite amount of numbers between the number 1 and the number 2. But I guess you could measure the amount of pixels in film if you measured each ray of light.


Depends on the set of numbers you're operating with.

If you are recording digitally the the bit depth would measure how high or low the wave is at any given sample. 16 bit, if I am not mistake, only has 9 values in either direction. What I don't understand is why people think 9 is good enough to say any more is a waste.


2^16 = 65536, so yes, you are mistaken.  18 total values would be just past 4 bits, which is obviously insufficient.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: A Dawg on 2008-06-03 06:41:20
I personally feel that 16 to 24 bit is a small, but noticeable step up. I have a soundcard which lets me change the bit depth while music is playing. I have played around with it and I would say that it was about as noticeable as going from 720p to 1080p on a 35 inch tv. Few would notice. But at close glance, you can see the extra detail. But when you go from 44.1k to 48k BIG difference. Most noticeable when a quiet passage is played at a high volume. CD's suffer a digital hiss, which are basically the steps in between samples. DVDs sound clearer than cd's to me because of these extra "steps." More steps in the same amount of space = smaller step. But the sound is of a lower quality than a cd, if that even makes sense. I am not very good at expressing my thoughts through words sometimes :'(. And I was joking about the lower.


Here is my stance. I am a guy who still buys records and loves to flac em 96k times a second with 24 bits in them samples.  You could have the normal 1(16 bit) lock on your doorknob. But I have a deadbolt, locking knob, and a chain.(24 bit) And instead of a wooden or plastic (44.1 khtz)door,  I have a steel door.

Am I actually safer(sound better) than you just because of that, maybe. But I definitely feel safer.

Was that too dumb
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-06-03 08:34:27
I would argue that a closer analogy than a wood door vs. a steel door would be going vegetarian because you're afraid of food poisoning. Just because you feel safer about it doesn't mean you really are safer, or that the risk was all that important in the first place.

You should read up more on sampling theory. There is no "space" between samples.

DVDs are usually lossily encoded on their audio tracks, but their DACs are generally of the same garden variety that are used in computers. There's no difference in how they decode audio - merely in the choice of lossy encoder used.

That said, I still rip vinyl to 24/96, but I make no justification for it nowadays, and I'm running low enough on disk space that I am considering switching to 16/44 for good.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2Bdecided on 2008-06-03 10:16:58
I personally feel that 16 to 24 bit is a small, but noticeable step up. I have a soundcard which lets me change the bit depth while music is playing. I have played around with it and I would say that it was about as noticeable as going from 720p to 1080p on a 35 inch tv.
I'll tell you why that's a terrible analogy - if the TV can actually display 1920x1080 native resolution, and the source image is sharp at that pixel level, then anyone with reasonable eye sight, sat close enough to the TV, will be able to see a difference very easily as you switch from one to the other on a still picture. Passing an ABX test would be absolutely trivial.

Whereas, with all other things being equal, in a correctly controlled blind test, passing an ABX test of 16 vx 24 bits, or 44.1kHZ vx 48kHz is near impossible, except with extreme samples and/or faulty equipment.

Cheers,
David.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: tot on 2008-06-03 12:15:28
That said, I still rip vinyl to 24/96, but I make no justification for it nowadays, and I'm running low enough on disk space that I am considering switching to 16/44 for good.


I have always felt that 16 bits reproduces the vinyl's surface noise quite well so 24 bits would be overkill, at least for final playback.  For recording 24 bits is better if any manipulation will be done to have more data to work with.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Roseval on 2008-06-03 12:20:32
Some calculations for you and a proof that the LP has a resolution of 32000 bits!
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_...rt12/page2.html (http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/iandm/part12/page2.html)
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Slipstreem on 2008-06-03 12:57:38
From the article...
Quote
The effect is to divide the  microns swing of a 0 dB 1 kHz sinewave into 32,000 steps...
Steps, not bits. That's slightly less than 15 bits. That equates to 1600 steps (less than 11 bits) at 20kHz.

Cheers, Slipstreem. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2tec on 2008-06-03 16:10:57
Therefore, all other things being equal, digital is superior to vinyl. That said, mastering on CDs is often terrible while the mastering on records is often made somewhat better. This varies from CD to CD and record to record, and CDs are technologically far superior to records.

Sure, in theory. Thankfully, music reproduction depends on many factors, of which bit depth plays only a small part. From my perspective it seems clear that the analog versus digital methodology argument is logically moot. People are simply comparing apples to oranges. Personally, I believe that analog music reproduction has its place, as does digital music reproduction. These two distinct methods are clearly not in any way equal, and personally I believe, not even comparable. Why people waste their time going on about which is better is simply beyond me!

Here, let me try using an example of what I'm trying to get at; which is better, an apple or an orange? Boy doesn't that answer sound obvious! Now, lets reword it; which is better, analog or digital? See, just as silly, in my humble opinion of course. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2Bdecided on 2008-06-03 18:04:17
But a digital recording can sound like anything you want - including an exact and perfect reproduction of the sound of an analogue (vinyl) recording, including all the noise, distortion, clicks, pops etc.

A vinyl recording will only sound like digital when the content is such that all the faults are masked. In other words, you can listen to a digital recording and think you're listening to vinyl; but you can't listen to vinyl and think you're listening to digital.

Therefore digital is superior as a delivery format because it's doesn't impose its own character on the audio. "Special effects" should be added because people want to, not because they're part of the delivery format.

Cheers,
David.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Juha on 2008-06-03 19:05:02

That said, I still rip vinyl to 24/96, but I make no justification for it nowadays, and I'm running low enough on disk space that I am considering switching to 16/44 for good.


I have always felt that 16 bits reproduces the vinyl's surface noise quite well so 24 bits would be overkill, at least for final playback.  For recording 24 bits is better if any manipulation will be done to have more data to work with.



I'm using a 36dB/oct HP filter for to get these noises off from vinyl recordings. Actually I even use a software based RIAA filter so that's why 24-bit is my choice.

(http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/8885/riaahpzo8.jpg)


Juha
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-06-03 20:20:53
Oh, nice! Another flat transfer partisan. Welcome to the club.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-06-03 20:26:06
Oh, nice! Another flat transfer partisan. Welcome to the club.


I have to wonder, what does all that RIAA curve do to your overall gain structure and dynamic range, then.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-06-03 20:40:37
The gain structure and DR are completely f*cked up, but the RIAA curve has nothing to do with that. It's entirely because the sound card I chose (an E-MU 0404 USB) appears to have an inferior dynamic range at 60db gain compared to its competitors. (I'm told that other integrated preamp/ADCs have no problem punching 80db SNR at that gain.)

Even then, the sound card noise floor is 10db lower than the noise floor of a quiet groove, at all frequencies. It still sounds pretty good.

Are you aware of Rob Robinson's AES preprint from the 123rd convention? ("Filter Reconstruction and Program Material Characteristics Mitigating Word Length Loss in Digital Signal Processing-Based Compensation Curves used for Playback of Analog Recordings").
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Juha on 2008-06-03 21:07:05

Oh, nice! Another flat transfer partisan. Welcome to the club.


I have to wonder, what does all that RIAA curve do to your overall gain structure and dynamic range, then.



AFAIK, the filter does nothing more than what a hardware RIAA filter does since ...

- overal gain can be controlled by adjusting the gain coefficients (mine is set as no extra gain)
- I've never measured if there is something strange with the DR

... ABX between hardware RIAA and this method is not necessary here since the result is ~different (this depends on how good RIAA stage you have for your cartridge ... is it optimized by the cartridge specs, etc.)

... IMO, you need to hear the difference to tell which one is more natural sounding (I like the result I get a lot since low frequency area is much deeper/sharper (there's a sound there) and mid/high areas are clearer w/ lots of details I can't get out of the hardware path of my stereo system ... but as said, it's the hardware altogether involved in this)

These software filters I have programmed (by calculations mentioned in quote below) are just a bit more accurate in reproduction of the RIAA EQ (accuracy depends on selected sample rate ... I normally use 3th-4th order IIR filters so the maximum error @ 0Hz to 20kHz is calculated  between ~0.0006dB (44.1kHz - ~0.000004dB (96kHz) and the phase is OK.


Here's the procedure how these filters been calculated by Robert Orban:

Quote
>Robert Orban wrote:
>
>> I can't see the first part of this thread, but if you are trying
>> to do an IIR simulation of the RIAA phono de-emphasis curve
>> (assuming s-plane poles at 50.5 and 2122 Hz and an s-plane zero
>> at 5005. Hz), here are some good minimum-phase magnitude
>> approximations.
>
>Neat, thanks! How did you make them?

I used a program I wrote (in ye olde Fortran :-). The outline goes as
follows:

Given a desired magnitude response in the z-plane, there exists a
response in a frequency-warped u-plane that, when bilinear-transformed
to the z-plane, creates the desired z-plane magnitude response.

-Compute the [magnitude response]^2 of the s-plane prototype on a grid. 
This is the square of the desired z-plane response.

-Warp the frequency axis by using the bilinear transform, recognizing
that we are approximating using omega^2 as our frequency variable. The
warp maps Nyquist to infinity.

-Make a least-squares rational approximation (i.e., ratio of
polynomials) to the values on the frequency grid. (I used the Numerical
Recipes routine RATLSQ, which uses Chebychev polynomials.)

-Refine the approximation to make the fractional error minimax by using
Remez's Second Algorithm [which applies to rational functions; it's not
the same as the Remez algorithm used in the classical MPR FIR design
program; see Forman S. Acton, Numerical Methods That Work (Revised
Edition), Washington D.C., American Mathematical Society, 1990, pp 310-
314]

-Transform the result into the z-plane in two steps. The first
recognizes that we have been approximating using the magnitude square
function, so we must take the square roots of the poles and zeros of the
approximated rational function, taking the negative real parts to
guarantee a stable, minimum-phase function. The second step is to apply
the bilinear transform to the result of the first step. This yields the
final z-plane poles and zeros.

There are some "interesting" numerical issues in making this procedure
work, mainly because the Remez update formulas require solving a system
of mildly nonlinear equations that tend be ill-conditioned.

The nice thing about the algorithm is that the frequency-warping moves
Nyquist to infinity and thus increases the resolution of the
approximation close to Nyquist, which is where difficulties often occur.


Robert Orban
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: AndyH-ha on 2008-06-03 21:11:41
The Emu specs say the preamp noise is approaching the minimum possible, which is quite good at that price, even without consideration of the rest of the box's contents. You find that its noise is unusually high near full gain? Is this full spectrum noise? Do RMAA tests tell you anything interesting?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Juha on 2008-06-03 21:17:12
The gain structure and DR are completely f*cked up, but the RIAA curve has nothing to do with that. It's entirely because the sound card I chose (an E-MU 0404 USB) appears to have an inferior dynamic range at 60db gain compared to its competitors. (I'm told that other integrated preamp/ADCs have no problem punching 80db SNR at that gain.)

Even then, the sound card noise floor is 10db lower than the noise floor of a quiet groove, at all frequencies. It still sounds pretty good.



I'm using the same E-MU 0404 USB which don't necessarily need another pre-amp for input ... it gives good enough quality for playback purposes (in this case I gain the filter 15-20dB and the RIAA EQ is done realtime) but, I also have prepared matched pre-amp too for recording purpose mainly (I'm using Technics turntable w/ Technics 205CMK3 cartridges ... which is quite capable cartridge by the factory measures they include into bundle).

Juha
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: AndyH-ha on 2008-06-03 21:18:55
Are you using a moving coil cartridge? Normal gains for MM is around 35dB, if I remember correctly. Or is there some reason you need more gain with MM using that approach (quite a bit more gain!)?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Juha on 2008-06-03 21:35:33
Are you using a moving coil cartridge? Normal gains for MM is around 35dB, if I remember correctly. Or is there some reason you need more gain with MM using that approach (quite a bit more gain!)?



If this was for me then, I'm using MM cartridges.

Juha
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: AndyH-ha on 2008-06-03 21:37:15
No, Axon is the one turning the gain to maximum.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-06-03 21:43:07
The gain structure and DR are completely f*cked up, but the RIAA curve has nothing to do with that. It's entirely because the sound card I chose (an E-MU 0404 USB) appears to have an inferior dynamic range at 60db gain compared to its competitors. (I'm told that other integrated preamp/ADCs have no problem punching 80db SNR at that gain.)

Even then, the sound card noise floor is 10db lower than the noise floor of a quiet groove, at all frequencies. It still sounds pretty good.

Are you aware of Rob Robinson's AES preprint from the 123rd convention? ("Filter Reconstruction and Program Material Characteristics Mitigating Word Length Loss in Digital Signal Processing-Based Compensation Curves used for Playback of Analog Recordings").


Yes, it's a simple exercise in filtering.

You don't see the 20dB in slope causing you any overload problems, etc. Oh, say, with Dark Side of the Moon? (JJ squints at a spectrum he just measured and wonders...)
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-06-03 22:20:27
It's entirely a matter of the gain used. I can clip if I actually set the gain to 65db and then play, say, the spot frequencies on STR151. (Note that this is a LOMC, an AT-OC9, I'm talking about.) But it's fine at 55db, I can always turn it down further if it overloads there, and I don't think I'll see many 20khz tones at those kinds of levels anyway... At 55db, normal classical LP levels hover at around 13-18db, and pops/ticks peak at -3. (Since I've never encountered that relatively high level of pop with my 440ML, I guess you could take that as some sort of empirical evidence for an MC having a tighter phase response than an MM. The transient when the stylus lands on the record is razor-sharp.)

I haven't recorded DSOTM yet (and well, my pressing is a well-work original Capitol, so it's not like it has much treble to begin with). But I did record Bernstein's Carmen, and while the opening cymbals are piercingly loud when recorded without RIAA, they are notably distortion-free. (It's worth noting that right now I'm recording at 24/44 and I'm using a naive bilinear IIR implementation of the RIAA filter, but once I actually implement the filter correctly, and perhaps record at 24/96, I'm not anticipating any surpises.)

It's also worth noting that the noise profile of both the sound card and the vinyl background hiss when flat-transferred (that I've measured so far) is white.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-06-03 22:35:35

Are you using a moving coil cartridge? Normal gains for MM is around 35dB, if I remember correctly. Or is there some reason you need more gain with MM using that approach (quite a bit more gain!)?
If this was for me then, I'm using MM cartridges.

Yeah, like I said above, I'm running MC. The OC9 has a sensitivity of around 0.4mV IIRC. Obviously, if I was still running with my 440 it would all be running like gangbusters, but I was running into a lot of EM interference issues running balanced into the 0404, and going fully balanced on the 440ML requires physically cutting the ground tab that's hard wired to one of the signal wires, and I was really enamoured of the thought of not requiring any loading, just a straight shot to the XLR inputs... I'm having to rethink that now.

The Emu specs say the preamp noise is approaching the minimum possible, which is quite good at that price, even without consideration of the rest of the box's contents. You find that its noise is unusually high near full gain? Is this full spectrum noise? Do RMAA tests tell you anything interesting?
Creative Labs is full of shit. What else is new?

The 0404 USB's specs are awesome on paper, as are the RMAA results. The problem is that the EIN/SNR numbers, while accurate, only apply for 0db of gain applied. As soon as you apply gain, you lose that EIN/SNR. So while you do in fact have that 105+db SNR with no gain, at 65db, you're literally down to 60db.

That is not how it's supposed to work. The Focusrite Saffire has an EIN of 120db at 60db of gain. Rob has tested the Saffire and it runs like a champ wired up to a LOMC, with no noise issues.



BTW Juha, that's really good info on using Remez to optimize IIR filter design. I've been having a lot of trouble coming up with high-accuracy RIAA coefficients.

Of course, is it possible for you to just post the coefficients for 44/48/96/192khz?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Juha on 2008-06-04 05:10:42
BTW Juha, that's really good info on using Remez to optimize IIR filter design. I've been having a lot of trouble coming up with high-accuracy RIAA coefficients.

Of course, is it possible for you to just post the coefficients for 44/48/96/192khz?


http://www.dsprelated.com/showmessage/73300/3.php (http://www.dsprelated.com/showmessage/73300/3.php)



EDIT:

BTW, which one would be the better place to put the (subsonic) HP Filter in signal path ... before or after RIAA Filter?

Juha

EDIT2:

BTW, Axon, would it be too much to ask from you if you mail me or link here a short sample (~0.5-1 min) of some of your flat recorded vinyls you feel is a good for testing this software RIAA filter in action. As I'm using VST based technology, I could render the sample w/ filter added and send it back (or link here) so you (or anyone) could make some comparisons too. Sample file bit-resolution could be any and the sample-rate 44.1/48/88.2 or 96kHz but, the format should be better to be lossless (FLAC, WAV).

Juha
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2tec on 2008-06-07 22:31:47
Therefore digital is superior as a delivery format because it's doesn't impose its own character on the audio. "Special effects" should be added because people want to, not because they're part of the delivery format.
  Sure, but what if the music was originally an analogue recording? Are you suggesting it all should be digitally remastered? Personally, I'd try to preserve the original sound by not messing with it. By the way, imho, there's more than enough music for both analog and digital reproduction, just in case you were worried about missing out on something. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2Bdecided on 2008-06-09 12:03:33

Therefore digital is superior as a delivery format because it's doesn't impose its own character on the audio. "Special effects" should be added because people want to, not because they're part of the delivery format.
  Sure, but what if the music was originally an analogue recording? Are you suggesting it all should be digitally remastered?
Well unless the studio is going to send me the original master tape and some equipment suitable for playing it back, then yes of course - put it on a CD, or 24/96 lossless FLAC or whatever.

Actually, even if they studio _is_ willing to send me the original master tape, I'd rather they didn't. I'd feel quite guilty wearing out all those Beatles master tapes just for my own private listening pleasure. Much better to make a digital copy that can be duplicated without loss as many times as necessary.


Of course I'm asking for a _good_ digital "remaster" - a careful transcription of the original - none of this dynamic range compression smashing against 0dB FS, and none of these terrible "drag a third generation dub off the shelf, play it on any old machine, ignore the EQ that was supposed to be applied at playback, and digitise it" efforts. But yes, digital every time. I even like noise reduction, and digital re-mixing to avoid a tape generation loss inerrant in an analogue master - though both are difficult to do in a way which pleases everyone, and good "modern" analogue mixing and mastering is already more than good enough.

People get very upset with the use of digital remastering to create vinyl. I mentioned the Beatles - many of their CDs and "remastered" LPs sound nothing like the original LPs, but "digital" isn't to blame - I can copy the original LPs onto CD just fine!

Cheers,
David.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-06-09 16:55:41



BTW Juha, that's really good info on using Remez to optimize IIR filter design. I've been having a lot of trouble coming up with high-accuracy RIAA coefficients.

Of course, is it possible for you to just post the coefficients for 44/48/96/192khz?


http://www.dsprelated.com/showmessage/73300/3.php (http://www.dsprelated.com/showmessage/73300/3.php)
WOOT! Thank you.


Quote
BTW, which one would be the better place to put the (subsonic) HP Filter in signal path ... before or after RIAA Filter?
Well, if it's in the software domain, does it really matter? As long as you're working in floating point, it shouldn't.


Quote
BTW, Axon, would it be too much to ask from you if you mail me or link here a short sample (~0.5-1 min) of some of your flat recorded vinyls you feel is a good for testing this software RIAA filter in action. As I'm using VST based technology, I could render the sample w/ filter added and send it back (or link here) so you (or anyone) could make some comparisons too. Sample file bit-resolution could be any and the sample-rate 44.1/48/88.2 or 96kHz but, the format should be better to be lossless (FLAC, WAV).
Yeah, I guess I could put something together. I'm out of web space at the moment, though (my old provider disappeared in the middle of the night - I'm not even kidding). I could probably email a small FLAC or send it through gmail?



Actually, even if they studio _is_ willing to send me the original master tape, I'd rather they didn't. I'd feel quite guilty wearing out all those Beatles master tapes just for my own private listening pleasure. Much better to make a digital copy that can be duplicated without loss as many times as necessary.
Heh, heh, heh.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2tec on 2008-06-11 00:12:50


Therefore digital is superior as a delivery format because it's doesn't impose its own character on the audio. "Special effects" should be added because people want to, not because they're part of the delivery format.
  Sure, but what if the music was originally an analogue recording? Are you suggesting it all should be digitally remastered?
Well unless the studio is going to send me the original master tape and some equipment suitable for playing it back, then yes of course - put it on a CD, or 24/96 lossless FLAC or whatever.
Actually, what works for me is simply playing the album on a good table. As well, I've had great success with prerecorded cassette tapes and a decent deck. Personally, I'm amazed at how how much great analog audio is still available and at very affordable prices.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: SHADES on 2008-07-28 06:30:15
24-bit precision gives you about 16.77 million values. Assuming a total groove width of 50 x 10^-6m, the maximum movement of the cutter is physically bounded at about half that. Much more and the cutter will be in the space for an adjacent groove.  Thus, 50 microns width divided by 16.77 million gives us about 3 x 10^-12m, i.e. ~0.03 angstroms.

The diameter of a hydrogen atom is 1.0 angstroms (1 x 10^-10m). That would make the resolution of a 24-bit digital signal equivalent to an analog cutter whose resolution is just about 1/30 the width of a hydrogen atom. Sadly, this seems to be physically impossible, as none of the particles smaller than atoms are stable enough to be used in records.

Of course, records aren't made of hydrogen, they're made of the polymer pvc. One molecule of pvc is about 100,000 angstroms. This means that, if the cutters were actually removing single pvc molecules the vinyl records would have about 11 bits of resolution. Sadly, they don't get even that precise, though I'm not sure the actual precision. To get down to a record made of hydrogen atoms (possible under very low temp/very high pressure I suppose) one would need 19 bits. Anything beyond that is useless as long as the laws of physics hold.

Therefore, all other things being equal, digital is superior to vinyl. That said, mastering on CDs is often terrible while the mastering on records is often made somewhat better. This varies from CD to CD and record to record, and CDs are technologically far superior to records.


Really good explination and article on why Vinyl may sound better than CD equiv here.
http://www.audioholics.com/education/audio...s-vs-cds-part-4 (http://www.audioholics.com/education/audio-formats-technology/dynamic-comparison-of-lps-vs-cds-part-4)

May stimulate you  and your calcs further. Hope u like
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-07-28 08:03:50
Really good explination and article on why Vinyl may sound better than CD equiv here.
http://www.audioholics.com/education/audio...s-vs-cds-part-4 (http://www.audioholics.com/education/audio-formats-technology/dynamic-comparison-of-lps-vs-cds-part-4)

May stimulate you  and your calcs further. Hope u like


We've covered that many times before. That article has some major issues and can't be seriously used to prove a point.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=47827 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=47827)
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: sld on 2008-07-28 08:20:47
...You can listen to a digital recording and think you're listening to vinyl; but you can't listen to vinyl and think you're listening to digital.

Therefore digital is superior as a delivery format because it's (sic) doesn't impose its own character on the audio. "Special effects" should be added because people want to, not because they're part of the delivery format.

This is a quotable quote. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: botface on 2008-07-28 14:51:16
A vinyl recording will only sound like digital when the content is such that all the faults are masked. In other words, you can listen to a digital recording and think you're listening to vinyl; but you can't listen to vinyl and think you're listening to digital.

Sorry but I have to disagree. While it's true that vinyl can suffer pops, clicks etc it doesn't have to and when it doesn't I don't believe it has an identifiable sonic signature.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Slipstreem on 2008-07-28 15:41:02
Sorry but I have to disagree. While it's true that vinyl can suffer pops, clicks etc it doesn't have to and when it doesn't I don't believe it has an identifiable sonic signature.
The noise floor on CD is a good 40dB below that of high quality vinyl. What's filling those 40dB of signal range if it isn't some kind of "identifiable sonic signature"?

Cheers, Slipstreem. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: richms on 2008-07-28 16:37:38
My brief venture into vinyl was short lived because as soon as I turned it up, I got some massive feedback crap going on. The only solution was to turn the subwoofer down to the point where it was virtually doing nothing.

It seems that taking your system past about 85dB when its flat to 16Hz makes turntables do bad things.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: botface on 2008-07-28 17:03:17
Sorry but I have to disagree. While it's true that vinyl can suffer pops, clicks etc it doesn't have to and when it doesn't I don't believe it has an identifiable sonic signature.
The noise floor on CD is a good 40dB below that of high quality vinyl. What's filling those 40dB of signal range if it isn't some kind of "identifiable sonic signature"?

Cheers, Slipstreem. 

I'm not suggesting that vinyl has the same dynamic range as CD just that in my experience you can't tell the medium while listening to music in a normal domestic environment if the tell-tale vinyl clues (pops, clicks etc) are not present on the piece being listened to. I guess I should qualify that by saying that I'm assuming the music level is well above the noise floor
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: pdq on 2008-07-28 17:16:04
My brief venture into vinyl was short lived because as soon as I turned it up, I got some massive feedback crap going on. The only solution was to turn the subwoofer down to the point where it was virtually doing nothing.

It seems that taking your system past about 85dB when its flat to 16Hz makes turntables do bad things.

That doesn't have to happen. Proper setup of the turntable on a well damped surface will avoid problems with feedback. In my youth I used to turn up the bass until the walls rattled, and never had a problem with feedback.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-07-28 18:00:49
Sorry but I have to disagree. While it's true that vinyl can suffer pops, clicks etc it doesn't have to and when it doesn't I don't believe it has an identifiable sonic signature.


Surface noise is required by physical processes. You can get rid of the gross noise due to damage, but surface noise is unavoidable.

Vinyl, furthermore, can easily be shown to have a particular set of distortion mechanisms that increase the loudness (using the term correctly) by much more than one would expect by the increase in intensity.

What is more, Vinyl almost always (system dependent but only usually on how much) will add L-R signal in midrange, and will also add L-R rumble.

The distortion and noise mechanisms in vinyl can actually sound better than the clean signal, sometimes, for very clean vinyl and playback.

I didn't say "accurate" I said "sounds better" as in "many people prefer".

The background noise on vinyl also, of course, often functions as "comfort noise". Very few concert halls are that quiet, I know, I've measured one or two myself...
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2Bdecided on 2008-07-29 10:13:47
I'm not suggesting that vinyl has the same dynamic range as CD just that in my experience you can't tell the medium while listening to music in a normal domestic environment if the tell-tale vinyl clues (pops, clicks etc) are not present on the piece being listened to. I guess I should qualify that by saying that I'm assuming the music level is well above the noise floor
It's not really good enough for a wide range classical work. What were once considered "good" recordings and "good" pressings are now only collected by people who love vinyl. Most people who love the actual music threw these records away as soon as they could get them on CD, and with good reason.

I have decent playback equipment. I have decent LPs. I have (a few) records that are indistinguishable from CDs. No classical ones though.

Cheers,
David.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: botface on 2008-07-29 10:53:21
Fair comment. It seems we don't disagree after all

Moderation: Removed unnecessary botched quote.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2tec on 2008-10-17 19:44:29
I have (a few) records that are indistinguishable from CDs.

Sure, however, my point wasn't whether analog is better than digital, or if albums can sound as good as, or the same as, CDs. In fact, my albums and tapes sound different than my CDs of the same music. To me, this is important, and is the reason why I maintain a non-solid-state audio set-up. Indeed, my original point was that I believe that music originally recorded using an entirely analog process can be reproduced with the greatest fidelity by an analog, tube based stereo system. So far, I haven't seen anything in this thread that would lead me to question this.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: pdq on 2008-10-17 19:56:51
What about the experiments in which an analog audio stream was converted to digital and back to analog, and none of the listeners were able to distinguish them?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2tec on 2008-10-18 02:20:51
What about the experiments in which an analog audio stream was converted to digital and back to analog, and none of the listeners were able to distinguish them?

Wouldn't the exact case be where the files were converted to digital and then directly compared to the originals? Personally, I've listened, as best I can, to the same recordings pre and post processed, and then through both of my front-ends. Both front ends sound different, however, neither seems completely better or worse than the other. The analog has more midrange warmth, the solid state seems to be tighter and the highs and lows seem sharper, but there's no apparent difference in fidelity. I prefer the analog side when listening to records and tapes, however for most post-seventies music, a CD player and foobar are better especially when dealing with digitally mastered or electronic music. They do sound different enough that I can tell them apart reliably.This all came about when I'd thought about, and then quickly gave up any thought of encoding my collection of tapes. Which, by the way, still sound great. It's been my experience that at normal volume levels, few people can tell the digital solid state CD based music from the same tune from an old pre-recorded analog cassette. Of course, with analog, there is always noise between tracks and in the silences during songs which gives it away.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Slipstreem on 2008-10-18 03:18:17
I do see your point, but I've stopped using my cassette deck on a regular basis for exactly the opposite reason. I already have most of the albums I have on tape on CD which I've transferred to MP3 in VBR at an average bitrate that's perceptually transparent to me on the same analogue amplifier I'd otherwise be listening to the tapes on.

Almost all of my tapes were home recordings from CDs I owned in the first place (or borrowed at the time but have subsequently purchased) and were recorded on a deck with -3dB points of 15Hz and 21kHz onto Metal formulation tapes using Dolby C, thus pushing the perceived noise floor on playback when using Dolby C down to around -85dB. The Dolby HX Pro incorporated into the recording deck minimised the saturation effects of the tape during the recording phase so commonly accused of causing a "warmth" of sorts through HF compression in cassette recordings.

At normal listening volumes when played back on a professional Teac cassette deck, I hear no significant difference between these recordings and the VBR MP3 encodings of the same original CDs. I have close to zero analogue "warmth" to lose due to there being next to none in these cassette recordings in the first place. They're just almost perfect replicas of the original source signal as far as a typical human ear is concerned. Closer analysis of these tapes shows that the vast majority of the original HF content remains intact many years after the initial recordings were made.

No doubt some readers of this post will scoff at the idea of an almost perceptually transparent cassette deck, but they honestly did exist and were sold in their hundreds of thousands. It was just a matter of doing your homework before purchasing and being prepared to pay for one.

Cheers, Slipstreem. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2Bdecided on 2008-10-20 14:45:49
Indeed, my original point was that I believe that music originally recorded using an entirely analog process can be reproduced with the greatest fidelity by an analog, tube based stereo system. So far, I haven't seen anything in this thread that would lead me to question this.
I don't think that's a fair use of the word "fidelity". You're taking a medium with inherent distortions, and playing it through a system that will add more inherent distortions.

There would be better fidelity to the original if you played it back through a system with fewer inherent distortions. This is just the definition of high fidelity - the closest approach to the original sound.

Which sounds "better" to you is a different matter. You could argue that the additional distortion is kinder to the original recording, or even more "true" to the intents of the original record producers.

I could similarly argue that the way to listen to The Beatles is by playing the vinyl on a 1964 Dansette record player. It may be true to the original sound heard by millions of fans, but it's not the greatest fidelity to the sound made in the studio.

(It may be closer to what was heard in the control room, but who would choose to sit in the control room when they could sit in the studio? (I suppose it depends on whether you think George Martin or John Lennon was more important - I've huge respect for both!)  )

Cheers,
David.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-10-29 21:11:31
At normal listening volumes when played back on a professional Teac cassette deck, I hear no significant difference between these recordings and the VBR MP3 encodings of the same original CDs. I have close to zero analogue "warmth" to lose due to there being next to none in these cassette recordings in the first place. They're just almost perfect replicas of the original source signal as far as a typical human ear is concerned. Closer analysis of these tapes shows that the vast majority of the original HF content remains intact many years after the initial recordings were made.

No doubt some readers of this post will scoff at the idea of an almost perceptually transparent cassette deck, but they honestly did exist and were sold in their hundreds of thousands. It was just a matter of doing your homework before purchasing and being prepared to pay for one.


Not only is the cassette format not sonically transparent, neither is its big brother, two-track high speed analog tape.

Please see http://www.provide.net/~djcarlst/abx_tapg.htm (http://www.provide.net/~djcarlst/abx_tapg.htm)
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-10-29 21:20:35
ARNY SPEAKS!

Took ya long enough to get here
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: [JAZ] on 2008-10-29 21:37:55
Not only is the cassette format not sonically transparent, neither is its big brother, two-track high speed analog tape.

Please see http://www.provide.net/~djcarlst/abx_tapg.htm (http://www.provide.net/~djcarlst/abx_tapg.htm)


I may not be the person to refute your post, but I see several details that i can't but put it here:

First, the person you're quoting stated about first generation copies, where in your link, it talks about second and fourth generation copies (on a supposedly better storage method)

It is a fact that tape does degrade the quality from copy to copy, just like transcoding lossy codecs do. This implies that either at the recording, storage or playback state, there is a loss of information. Yet, that's not against what the user said.


Next, there's something I don't get:

Correct    p less than
193 / 340 = 57%    0.007

May I ask.... since when a 57% of correct guesses is a 0.007 probability of guessing?
Care to tell me what does that test actually mean?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Slipstreem on 2008-10-29 22:37:07
I never said that the cassette format was sonically transparent, just that it was capable of coming close given a good example of appropriate machine and tape. Even more so if the machine is accurately calibrated in terms of recording  bias level to suit the tape in question.

I'd like to be able to take the ABX results seriously on the Otari MTR-10 and MTR-20 decks, but as no mention is made of the age of the machines, the condition of the heads, the specific tape used, nor whether the optional Dolby SR noise reduction offered with these machines was either installed or used during the testing process, the results are meaningless in reality.

Apologies if that appears rude. It's just the way my analytical mind sees it.

Cheers, Slipstreem. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-10-30 19:41:35
Quote
' date='Oct 29 2008, 17:37' post='596389']

Not only is the cassette format not sonically transparent, neither is its big brother, two-track high speed analog tape.

Please see http://www.provide.net/~djcarlst/abx_tapg.htm (http://www.provide.net/~djcarlst/abx_tapg.htm)


I may not be the person to refute your post, but I see several details that i can't but put it here:

First, the person you're quoting stated about first generation copies, where in your link, it talks about second and fourth generation copies (on a supposedly better storage method)


In the context of the ABX test I cited, the first test *was* origional versus second generation, which is the same as a first generation copy.  IOW, the author called the original the first generation.


Quote
Next, there's something I don't get:

Correct    p less than
193 / 340 = 57%    0.007

May I ask.... since when a 57% of correct guesses is a 0.007 probability of guessing?


57% correct is 0.007 probability of guessing when you do a large number of trials.  Do a smaller number of trials and the probability of guessing increases.


ARNY SPEAKS!

Took ya long enough to get here


Usenet is getting to be soooooo boring. :-(

I never said that the cassette format was sonically transparent, just that it was capable of coming close given a good example of appropriate machine and tape. Even more so if the machine is accurately calibrated in terms of recording  bias level to suit the tape in question.


I guess I think that "close" is hard to get a precise handle on. Take my post as an errr... umm... clarification. ;-)

Quote
I'd like to be able to take the ABX results seriously on the Otari MTR-10 and MTR-20 decks, but as no mention is made of the age of the machines, the condition of the heads, the specific tape used, nor whether the optional Dolby SR noise reduction offered with these machines was either installed or used during the testing process, the results are meaningless in reality.


Dolby SR was not used. The machines had been just tested and aligned by one of the very best analog tape technicans around, who also did the tests.

I seem to recall they were brand new machines being checked out by the dealer's best tech, preparatory for delivery. The tape choice was of course optimal for thase machines at that time. I think there is a corresponding AES paper, but I don't know if it was for a conference or a section meeting.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-10-30 19:57:24
What about the experiments in which an analog audio stream was converted to digital and back to analog, and none of the listeners were able to distinguish them?


That's an easy test to do and many people have done it with the same results you mention. Questions can be asked about the source material, and the monitoring environment.

People who believe in magic recordings that reveal differences that other recordings can't, can be reasonable or unreasonable depending on how far they take it.

If the conversion in question is 16/44 then a good recording done in an appreciably more precise format like 24/96 should be sufficient.

A good pair of 16/44 converters will pass the test if levels are set intelligently.

People who believe in magic monitoring systems that reveal differents that other systems don't are on shakier ground, given that reasonably good equipment is being used.  Headphones can be very sensitive, and a pair of < $260 Sennheiser HD 600s are about as sensitive as it gets. HD 580s were good enough but they seem to be out of production.

Certainly any system that meets EBU recommentation BS 1116 is pretty solid. That recommendation can be met using a pair of JBL powered monitors that sell for less than $2,000 a pair, situated in an appropriate room.

Cut to the chase and you find that the limit to what we can hear are often the limitations on dynamic range and frequency response that are a natural part of a live performance, the dynamic range issues in most listening rooms, and the listener's ears.


Oh, nice! Another flat transfer partisan. Welcome to the club.


I have to wonder, what does all that RIAA curve do to your overall gain structure and dynamic range, then.


It is not pretty!
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Slipstreem on 2008-10-30 20:07:44
I guess I think that "close" is hard to get a precise handle on. Take my post as an errr... umm... clarification. ;-)
That's exactly how it was intended and no offence taken. I've learned to be either painstakingly precise or ambiguous to the point of not actually stating anything around here. There's not much tolerance given for anything inbetween.

Quote
Dolby SR was not used. The machines had been just tested and aligned by one of the very best analog tape technicans around, who also did the tests.

I seem to recall they were brand new machines being checked out by the dealer's best tech, preparatory for delivery. The tape choice was of course optimal for thase machines at that time. I think there is a corresponding AES paper, but I don't know if it was for a conference or a section meeting.
Thanks for the additional info. I'd have liked to have seen the same test carried out with Dolby SR personally. It should, in theory, increase the transparency by quite a margin if calibrated correctly by heavily reducing the effects of tape saturation and increasing the apparent S/N ratio considerably. Although it still wouldn't have fooled all of the people all of the time, I think the decks would have faired much better in an ABX test with it rather than without it.

And please excuse my manners. Welcome aboard.

Cheers, Slipstreem. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-10-30 21:40:26


Oh, nice! Another flat transfer partisan. Welcome to the club.


I have to wonder, what does all that RIAA curve do to your overall gain structure and dynamic range, then.


It is not pretty!


Oh, blah. We've been over this before on this site.

Right now I'm recording flat with a Yamaha GO46 (quieter/cheaper than an Emu 0404 USB!). It's about 10-20db quieter at all frequencies than the vinyl noise floors I'm recording, except for some 1khz peaks and diverse harmonics thereof at +20db above the vinyl noise floor (which are not audible at real listening levels, and are not predicted to be audible due to spectral masking), and a really wide hump at 700hz that's perhaps 5db up IIRC. That's probably audible, but even with my dynamic LPs it's an incredibly minor concern. The noise floor while recording is -72db, and I do manage to clip on very rare occasion with real music.

So I still have some niggling issues with my flat setup, but they're exceedingly minor, and I'm fairly sure they will go away on the next upgrade. And they are likely worlds better than anything else I could find for $150.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Slipstreem on 2008-10-31 00:00:12
@Axon: I hope you're providing the recommended capacitive loading for the cartridge, preferably directly at the cartridge. If the graphs you showed us in a recent thread showing noticeable HF ringing are anything to go by, I suspect not.

Cheers, Slipstreem. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-10-31 00:11:52
@Axon: I hope you're providing the recommended capacitive loading for the cartridge, preferably directly at the cartridge. If the graphs you showed us in a recent thread showing noticeable HF ringing are anything to go by, I suspect not. 

Cheers, Slipstreem. 
It's not needed. I run MC.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Slipstreem on 2008-10-31 00:24:46
Ah. Fair enough.

Cheers, Slipstreem. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-10-31 00:52:14
... That said, I do intend on scoring a 78 cart someday, and unless I want to spend $2000 for an EMT (http://www.stereophile.com/artdudleylistening/908listen/index.html), or get a retip on a DL-102 for some smaller but still absurd price, I'll probably get an Ortofon or Shure 78 cartridge, and wire up an inline capacitive network with XLR connectors.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Slipstreem on 2008-10-31 01:14:11
Would it not work better with the capacitors soldered on directly at the cartridge though? I only ask after carrying out similar damping/tuning experiments myself with cassette tape deck heads where placing low-K ceramic plate capacitors directly at the head was far more effective than placing them at the opposite end of a length of coax.

I realise that you won't be expecting to tune for a flat 20kHz+ bandwidth like I was and you're never going to get that back from an old 78RPM recording anyway, but it might help with damping out the inherent ringing that's going to occur mechanically if, or should I say when, you hit a big scratch or heavy surface noise.

Cheers, Slipstreem. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-10-31 01:26:26
Soldering the leads on a cart is an easy way to fry it. However, wiring the network up parallel to the headshell leads would work pretty well...
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Slipstreem on 2008-10-31 01:32:48
Best of luck with it when it happens. I'm hoping to see an in-depth article in your blog about it when it does.

Cheers, Slipstreem. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-10-31 12:53:54
Right now I'm recording flat with a Yamaha GO46 (quieter/cheaper than an Emu 0404 USB!). It's about 10-20db quieter at all frequencies than the vinyl noise floors I'm recording, except for some 1khz peaks and diverse harmonics thereof at +20db above the vinyl noise floor (which are not audible at real listening levels, and are not predicted to be audible due to spectral masking), and a really wide hump at 700hz that's perhaps 5db up IIRC. That's probably audible, but even with my dynamic LPs it's an incredibly minor concern. The noise floor while recording is -72db, and I do manage to clip on very rare occasion with real music.


So, educate me! ;-)

Dynamic range has two parts - noise floor and headroom. YOu seem to be OK on the noise floor end, but what's happening with headroom?  Before you apply eq in the digital domain, how close do peak levels come to FS?


Soldering the leads on a cart is an easy way to fry it. However, wiring the network up parallel to the headshell leads would work pretty well...


Done the headshell trip, and it works, but adds some mass. Soldered to the clips that slip onto the cartrdige pins.

Never had any problem with applying loading capacitance at the preamp end. Indeed, my main phono preamp in the days of vinyl was based on NE5534 ICs, and had tuning capacitors wired across the inputs.

The sources and electronics were in a different room than the speakers, the walls were wet plaster over steel, and the floors were poured concrete over sand. Bottom line, minimal transfer from the speakers to the playback setup. No problems with acoustic feedback, even with the 18" subwoofer (F -3 = 16 Hz) in play.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Slipstreem on 2008-10-31 14:37:21
Never had any problem with applying loading capacitance at the preamp end. Indeed, my main phono preamp in the days of vinyl was based on NE5534 ICs, and had tuning capacitors wired across the inputs.
It's difficult to quantify the difference in terms of the audible effect without violating TOS8, but I had young ears at the time and the HF content definitely sounded much cleaner to me personally with the capacitors at the cartridge end. There was far less ringing on record scratches and HF content when viewed with an oscilloscope too.

All coaxial cable inherently has inductive properties as well as capacitive, so placing the capacitors at the far end of a cable run is effectively placing another L/C circuit in series/parallel with the cartridge before the loading capacitors. Placing the capacitors as close as physically possible to the cartridge means that it "sees" the capacitors as an almost purely capacitive load rather than "seeing" them at the opposite end of a frequency-dependent (thus lossy) transmission line.

Low-K ceramic plate capacitors were used due to their inherently high temperature stability, close tolerance and very low leakage. They're about as close to perfection as a capacitor can get for HF audio use and their mass is so close to zero as to be insignificant in a typical headshell, IMO. I've never actually weighed one, but the solder used to attach them could weigh significantly more than the capacitors themselves.

I was particularly interested in minimising overshoot and ringing at the time to make it easier for the analogue electronics I'd designed to discriminate a scratch from genuine audio content for a home-brewed scratch eliminator. On one particular test record that I'd deliberately scratched myself, the detection accuracy went up from 74% to 97% by simply moving the capacitors from the input of the preamp to the cartridge itself due to reduced HF ringing.

Whether or not this makes any audible difference to the clarity of HF content from vinyl to any given individual is open to debate depending upon whether the ringing with their particular system is large enough to be heard and within the frequency range audible by the listener in question, but it hopefully goes at least partway towards explaining my apparent obsession with the subject of technically correct loading.

Cheers, Slipstreem. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-10-31 16:38:29
So, educate me! ;-)

Dynamic range has two parts - noise floor and headroom. YOu seem to be OK on the noise floor end, but what's happening with headroom?  Before you apply eq in the digital domain, how close do peak levels come to FS?
Like I said, it clips on rare occasion - although usually this happens either with a pop/tick or when I'm playing a 33 at 45rpm by accident, or when significant groove wear is already evident in the final product - cases that I largely don't care about. Otherwise, the clip is for only one or two samples out of every 50 or so. So I'm not too worried about it.

Moreover, this is at the maximum gain setting for the preamp (50db), and I can always turn it down if it becomes an issue. And note, this is for a LOMC. Gain goes a lot farther in the flat domain than in the RIAA domain.

Quote
Done the headshell trip, and it works, but adds some mass. Soldered to the clips that slip onto the cartrdige pins.
Ah, yeah, good point. I'm already in the 7hz regime with my arm/cart and I probably shouldn't go any lower.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: botface on 2008-11-01 09:40:21
... That said, I do intend on scoring a 78 cart someday, and unless I want to spend $2000 for an EMT (http://www.stereophile.com/artdudleylistening/908listen/index.html), or get a retip on a DL-102 for some smaller but still absurd price, I'll probably get an Ortofon or Shure 78 cartridge, and wire up an inline capacitive network with XLR connectors.

I don't want to poke my nose in if you've got a plan for transcribing 78's but I've had quite a lot of experience with them - I've restored getting on for 200, with varying degrees of success. So, if you think it might help I'll gladly share my experience with you. I'm not sure such a discussion fits with this thread so maybe you could start a new one or just PM me
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-11-01 18:49:32
Sure, thanks - although I'll warn you, this is a very long term goal of mine. I don't own any 78s, alas.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-11-02 11:27:00
Never had any problem with applying loading capacitance at the preamp end. Indeed, my main phono preamp in the days of vinyl was based on NE5534 ICs, and had tuning capacitors wired across the inputs.



All coaxial cable inherently has inductive properties as well as capacitive,


However, the inductance of a cable can be quantified.  The capacitance  of a shielded cable will be from 15 to 60 pF per foot, and the inductance will be on the order of  2 tenths of a microhenry per foot.  In contrast the inductance of a MM cartrdige is about half a henry (IOW 500 millihenries).  The difference is a ratio of 250,000, which is to say that the inductance of a few feet of coax cable is negligable compared to that of the other important inductance in the system.

Quote
so placing the capacitors at the far end of a cable run is effectively placing another L/C circuit in series/parallel with the cartridge before the loading capacitors.


However this additional LC circuit resonates so far out of the audio band, and has such low Q, that it is totally negligable. If it mattered there would be some evidence in the frequency response curve of the cartridge, and there never is.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-11-02 11:38:34
So, educate me! ;-)

Dynamic range has two parts - noise floor and headroom. YOu seem to be OK on the noise floor end, but what's happening with headroom?  Before you apply eq in the digital domain, how close do peak levels come to FS?


Like I said, it clips on rare occasion - although usually this happens either with a pop/tick or when I'm playing a 33 at 45rpm by accident, or when significant groove wear is already evident in the final product - cases that I largely don't care about.


Well, that is evidence of the potential dynamic range problem I was talking about. Traditional feedback RIAA circuits put the noise floor at least 10 dB below quiet groove noise, and put preamp clipping at least 10 dB above the absolute worst case input that can ever possibly happen.

Quote
Otherwise, the clip is for only one or two samples out of every 50 or so. So I'm not too worried about it.


Normally the standard for professional recording is no clip, no place, ever, and about 10-20 dB of headroom on top of that.

Quote
Moreover, this is at the maximum gain setting for the preamp (50db), and I can always turn it down if it becomes an issue.


I'd turn it down until the noise floor becomes a problem. A little noise is an inconvenience, clipping is a disaster.

Quote
And note, this is for a LOMC. Gain goes a lot farther in the flat domain than in the RIAA domain.


It should be all the same. The problem with a flat preamp is overload at mid and high frequencies. If I were designing a playback system for LPs that was centerpieced by digital equalization, I'd consider building it with a - 6 dB/octave roll-off starting at 50 Hz, and putting in the midrange turnover in with digital equalization.

The way I'd set it up is play back a well-respected test record and simply set the default eq so that the FR bands on the test record play back as specified.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Slipstreem on 2008-11-02 16:43:25
However, the inductance of a cable can be quantified.  The capacitance  of a shielded cable will be from 15 to 60 pF per foot, and the inductance will be on the order of  2 tenths of a microhenry per foot.  In contrast the inductance of a MM cartrdige is about half a henry (IOW 500 millihenries).  The difference is a ratio of 250,000, which is to say that the inductance of a few feet of coax cable is negligable compared to that of the other important inductance in the system.
From memory, I believe that the inductance of the cartridge in question was closer to 50mH than 500, but this still leaves only a miniscule effect within the audio band that certainly wouldn't have been audible. It seems as though I was suckered by our old friend Mr Placebo, so I retract my previous claim of there being an audible difference.

My notes on the design, building and testing of the scratch eliminator in question are 25 years old and I now believe that my hand-drawn sketches in the brief notes relating to ringing were taken after the channel differential of an 18dB/octave high-pass filtering at 20kHz of the non-RIAA corrected signal was undertaken. No low-pass filtering was applied above 20kHz, so the resultant sketch contained everything from 20kHz upwards and hardly anything below it.

The effects outside the normal audio pass-band were significant enough to make scratch detection considerably easier with my particular cartridge and detector arrangement, but the effect of capacitive loading placement obviously doesn't bear any relevance under normal listening conditions as was my previous mistaken assumption.

Thanks for clarifying this for me.

Cheers, Slipstreem. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-11-02 17:56:03
Well, that is evidence of the potential dynamic range problem I was talking about. Traditional feedback RIAA circuits put the noise floor at least 10 dB below quiet groove noise, and put preamp clipping at least 10 dB above the absolute worst case input that can ever possibly happen.
I disagree. The "native" noise floor of the ADC is in the -100db range; the -72db noise that exists is almost entirely due to the preamp. That clipping simply reflects my laziness in not turning the gain down to reduce the risk of clipping. That said, that points out one sorta significant disadvantage to using mic preamps: their gains can't be ganged together, so every time I want to change the gain, I need to schlep to my test record and make sure the knobs are set correctly.

Quote
Normally the standard for professional recording is no clip, no place, ever, and about 10-20 dB of headroom on top of that.
Yes, but I'm aiming for quality and laziness, not professionalism.  I am utterly confident that I would not be able to pass an ABX test if a single-sample peak, at 96khz, was clipped by 10% or 20% in such a fashion.

Quote
It should be all the same. The problem with a flat preamp is overload at mid and high frequencies. If I were designing a playback system for LPs that was centerpieced by digital equalization, I'd consider building it with a - 6 dB/octave roll-off starting at 50 Hz, and putting in the midrange turnover in with digital equalization.  The way I'd set it up is play back a well-respected test record and simply set the default eq so that the FR bands on the test record play back as specified.
Rob over at Pure Vinyl actually does have a software setting for if one's mic preamp has single pole or zero of the RIAA eq wired into it - the 75us one, as I recall. It's largely for the same reasons.

I'm not disputing anything you say on this, but I'll admit that my reasons for going flat are largely intrinsic rather than for particularly sound reasons - simply put, I wanted a test platform to do recordings with as clean a transient response as possible, and eliminating all equalization entirely from the circuit is advantageous in that situation.


Also, if I may ask: What is your opinion of the OC9?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-11-02 22:09:17
Also, if I may ask: What is your opinion of the OC9?


No experience, no opinion.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-11-02 22:50:38

Also, if I may ask: What is your opinion of the OC9?


No experience, no opinion.
Really? (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.audio.high-end/msg/54d5887d2e8b06e2?&q=oc9+magic)  (Sorry - didn't mention my alter egos on other sites, and I forgot that you mentioned that on Usenet as opposed to here. Kind of a brain fart that I even asked that here.)
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2008-11-07 17:41:21
Goodness, Axon on RAHE, Arny on HA, a mixed-race Democrat elected President -- it's a world gone mad!

I like it. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ff123 on 2008-11-08 02:54:52
I feel old.  Good to see you Arny.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-11-10 02:06:14
I feel old.  Good to see you Arny.



Good to see old friends and new.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-11-11 18:49:41
Goodness, Axon on RAHE, Arny on HA, a mixed-race Democrat elected President -- it's a world gone mad!

I like it. 



Last I looked RAHE was dead, the only remaining moderator wanted me to apologize to him for pointing out tht he was hideously biased in favor of terminal woo, and a couple of the notables there were holding forth that I had never run a DBT in my life, and that I didn't know what an ABX test was.

Vinyl, still, has rather some "good sounding" distortions, for some people, at least, but they are distortions.

Vinyl also appears, when you mistrack, to have a huge dynamic range. This is solely due to the fact that mistracking creates huge outputs from the vinyl, and does not reflect on its signal carrying capacity.

As to digital capture of vinyl, if one wants to see what kind of SNR is lost in the PCM range when capturing without RIAA, one simply has to look at the limits of the RIAA curve, take the difference, and that's how many dB you lose. Does it compare to a phono-preamp? Depends on the phono preamp. Mine, at least, does a better job than capturing vinyl at 20 bits and then doing RIAA EQ.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-11-11 18:58:18
Wow, talk about bum luck on RAHE. Or just bums.

I tend to agree about dyanamic range and vinyl, although I would point out that the false dynamic range is probably due to mistracing (including due to wear) and not mistracking. At least in mainstream listening situations (records cut near 0db, 9" arms, reasonable alignment, no skipping).

Quote
As to digital capture of vinyl, if one wants to see what kind of SNR is lost in the PCM range when capturing without RIAA, one simply has to look at the limits of the RIAA curve, take the difference, and that's how many dB you lose. Does it compare to a phono-preamp? Depends on the phono preamp. Mine, at least, does a better job than capturing vinyl at 20 bits and then doing RIAA EQ.
But what's the peak spot signal power? Is it even physically possible for a record to hit 0db on your preamp with a 20khz sine?

At my current gain levels on my flat setup, 0db @1khz hits at around -33dbFS. So the "weakest" signal that would cause clipping would be around 20khz +13db. I assert that is untrackable. In that context, SNR needs to be evaluated against both a variable signal ceiling (relating to maximum tracking ability, and also to the maximum levels that are typically encountered in cut records) and a variable noise floor. Given the acceleration and velocity constraints of the medium and the transducers it is entirely reasonable to believe that the signal limits become more constrained as frequency increases.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2008-11-11 20:32:32

Goodness, Axon on RAHE, Arny on HA, a mixed-race Democrat elected President -- it's a world gone mad!

I like it. 



Last I looked RAHE was dead, the only remaining moderator wanted me to apologize to him for pointing out tht he was hideously biased in favor of terminal woo, and a couple of the notables there were holding forth that I had never run a DBT in my life, and that I didn't know what an ABX test was.


Must've been some time ago....there's now two moderators, though the previous one never struck me as biased in favor of woo...if anything, for the last few years he pretty much let me and a few others rail against it at whim, as long as we actually make an argument, and don't get personal.  Today it's not quite dead, though perhaps it smells funny...the posting roster is much reduced to maybe a dozen or so 'notables' from its heyday of years back, and I wouldn't claim any new ground ever really gets laid down.  The liveliest thread right now involves whether audible distortion is INTRINSIC to vinyl production and playback.  The competing answers are

yes it's unavoidable

yes but it's euphonic so that's ok

no it's not intrinsic (the latter accompanied by 'show me exact figure in a JAES paper that proves me wrong').
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-11-13 13:05:16
Today it's not quite dead, though perhaps it smells funny...the posting roster is much reduced to maybe a dozen or so 'notables' from its heyday of years back, and I wouldn't claim any new ground ever really gets laid down.


The problem being that many of the posters are very poorly informed, and have heads that seem to be made out of tungsten.

Quote
The liveliest thread right now involves whether audible distortion is INTRINSIC to vinyl production and playback.  The competing answers are

yes it's unavoidable  [that has to be what you and I are flogging]

yes but it's euphonic so that's ok

no it's not intrinsic (the latter accompanied by 'show me exact figure in a JAES paper that proves me wrong').

So we cited the papers and then got whined at for not quoting line, chapter and verse.

BTW, you forgot

"Digital has to sound bad because of the empty spaces between the quantization levels causes audible truncation of fading sounds"

Also we have a thread about how changing the power supply on a computer audio interface

"Sound was much smoother, especially in the high frequencies.
The EMU seemed to be able to resolve more as well.
Also, the quiet passages were, um, quieter:)"

I asked the guy to take 5 minutes to run a Rightmark, and of course he said:

"I suppose I could do that, but I do not need to. I know there was a
difference and I'm not about to clarify my results by posting the
technical papers in some science journal."
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-11-13 13:17:04
I tend to agree about dyanamic range and vinyl, although I would point out that the false dynamic range is probably due to mistracing (including due to wear) and not mistracking. At least in mainstream listening situations (records cut near 0db, 9" arms, reasonable alignment, no skipping).


I think that the perception of dynamic range may be about more than just increasing nonlinear distortion creating a false impression of loudness.

I think that when people hear fades on vinyl, they tend to hear fades into the relatively high mechanically-generated noise floor  that is part of the LP playback system and therefore has a different spatial focussing and spectral content than acoustical noise, which is what you hear with a CD.  With a CD, natural acoustical music fades are going to finish in either the acoustical noise floor of the listening room or the acoustical noise floor of the recording space.

Fades on a well-made CD can be a different experience from the LP due to the mediums inherently lower noise floor. The media-genearted noise floor is so much louder on a LP than on a CD that fades on the CD end up finishing in either the noise floor of the recording space or the listening room space. In either case the noise floor has a different and spectrum than electronic or mechanical noise.

Audiophiles, whether they believe it or not have been subjected to a lot of false propaganda about digital.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-11-13 19:42:44
I think that the perception of dynamic range may be about more than just increasing nonlinear distortion creating a false impression of loudness.

You know, strictly speaking, increasing nonlinear distortion creates a true impression of increased loudness. The loudness actually does go up. It is merely illusory in the sense that it doesn't exist in the original music.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2008-11-14 03:06:09
I think that the perception of dynamic range may be about more than just increasing nonlinear distortion creating a false impression of loudness.

You know, strictly speaking, increasing nonlinear distortion creates a true impression of increased loudness. The loudness actually does go up. It is merely illusory in the sense that it doesn't exist in the original music.


aka...euphonic distortion!
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-11-15 01:03:08
I think that the perception of dynamic range may be about more than just increasing nonlinear distortion creating a false impression of loudness.


Well, if you don't mind, Arny, perhaps we could discuss the actual effects of distortion that increases with level. 

It does, factually, increase loudness when it spreads the spectrum or creates new spectral elements. What the listener hears is LOUDER, by the real definition of LOUDNESS.

"false" is an interesting term, if you mean "it's not in the original", well, yeah. It's not. But it's in the playback. Could the producer use this? Yes, I think so, although perhaps not knowingly.

If you mean "it's false to the listener", no, spreading the spectrum increases loudness if done in the way that LP's typically distort.

In other words, it's euphonic distortion THAT SOME PEOPLE PREFER. 

That doesn't make it right or wrong. Btw, it's not that hard nowadays to just mimic that distortion digitally.

Btw, the fading into noise instead of digital black also has some the same effects, as does the out-of-phase rumble component from an LP, the interchannel intermodulation, and all those other things that "weak-minded" people who "broke and ran" pointed out years ago.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-11-15 21:54:32
[quote name='krabapple' date='Nov 13 2008, 22:06' post='599166']
[quote name='Axon' post='599105' date='Nov 13 2008, 14:42']
[quote name='Arnold B. Krueger' post='599031' date='Nov 13 2008, 07:17']I think that the perception of dynamic range may be about more than just increasing nonlinear distortion creating a false impression of loudness.[/quote]
You know, strictly speaking, increasing nonlinear distortion creates a true impression of increased loudness. The loudness actually does go up.
[/quote]

When I tried to ABX this, I found no way to add distortion and obtain the same sound as a louder, undistorted sound.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-11-16 05:10:48
When I tried to ABX this, I found no way to add distortion and obtain the same sound as a louder, undistorted sound.


Obviously, if something is "louder" the psychological equivalent of "level matching" fails, doesn't it?

Now, of course, you'd need to detail your particular distortion mechanisms, etc, as well.

Would you like to?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-11-17 14:24:32
When I tried to ABX this, I found no way to add distortion and obtain the same sound as a louder, undistorted sound.


Obviously, if something is "louder" the psychological equivalent of "level matching" fails, doesn't it?


I fear we are not communicating at all.

Quote
Now, of course, you'd need to detail your particular distortion mechanisms, etc, as well.


Method.

Take a typical musical selection a few seconds long. Call this "B" (for Beautiful)

Copy it.

ABX it to see if the copies match.

If they do, then attenuate the copy by 3 dB and ABX the pair again to see if you can tell the difference that the level mismatch makes.

If you can tell the difference reliably, take the attenuated copy  add various amounts of second harmonic distortion. Call these your trial "A"samples (for Awful).

Determine how much distortion it takes to make the anyh of the "A"s  sound the same as  "B".

If you add a little distortion, then it doesn't bring up the level of the "A" sample, and if you add a lot then the "A" sample sounds like it is harsher.

Conclusion: You may make something sound harsher, and some listeners may equate harsher with louder, but in the end the educated ear is not fooled.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-11-18 05:24:12

When I tried to ABX this, I found no way to add distortion and obtain the same sound as a louder, undistorted sound.


Obviously, if something is "louder" the psychological equivalent of "level matching" fails, doesn't it?


I fear we are not communicating at all.


That's become obvious. Given that most any level of distortion will create more loudness at some level, I fail to see how you do a "level-matched" test. What DO you define as level-matched, then, pray tell?
Quote
Quote

Now, of course, you'd need to detail your particular distortion mechanisms, etc, as well.


Method.

Take a typical musical selection a few seconds long. Call this "B" (for Beautiful)

Copy it.

ABX it to see if the copies match.

If they do, then attenuate the copy by 3 dB and ABX the pair again to see if you can tell the difference that the level mismatch makes.

If you can tell the difference reliably, take the attenuated copy  add various amounts of second harmonic distortion. Call these your trial "A"samples (for Awful).


So, then, this is done in analog or digital domains? If you did it in the digital domain, you've made an awful mistake and created a mass of aliased inharmonic components that are going to sound "very odd" at the least, unless you've done more than you indicated here. Did you oversample? Did you control your nonlinearities so that no products of the nonlinearity exceed fs/2?

So which did you do? What would the polynomial representation of your distortion mechanism look like?  What was the sampling rate multiplier?

Did you split it into M/S and use different distortions on M/S as is appropriate?
Quote
Determine how much distortion it takes to make the anyh of the "A"s  sound the same as  "B".

How is this remotely germane to this discussion?  You're trying to compare short-term loudness differences on peaks (dynamic range perception) to long-term loudness perception?  You've completely confused the entire issue, and confounded your test with something that just frankly seems, well, irrelevant.
Quote
If you add a little distortion, then it doesn't bring up the level of the "A" sample, and if you add a lot then the "A" sample sounds like it is harsher.

Since, then, we're talking about apparent dynamic range, and  in particular instantaneous loudness, you're not even testing the known facts. I have no idea, what, really, you are testing, but I have little doubt that if you raise the AVERAGE loudness by a factor of 1.21, give or take, by distortion mechanisms, it's going to sound bizzare.

Of course, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual effects of loudness enhancement in a dynamic signal. So what have we proven here?
Quote
Conclusion: You may make something sound harsher, and some listeners may equate harsher with louder, but in the end the educated ear is not fooled.


No, you have to provide affirmative evidence for your assertion, not negative evidence for something else. So you have no reasonable justification for that issue.

Now, you have to figure out how to:

Compare perceived dynamic range of two signals via blind test of low-order distortions.
Find out how much dynamic range enhancement sounds "good" and how much sounds "bad".
Figure out how to avoid aliasing in your distortion mechanisms.
Figure out what distortions to use in M and S if you're trying to mimic vinyl.
Figure out what level of antiphase low-frequency distortion is relevant.
Figure out what level of low-level noise, and of what frequency, to use, if LP is what you're mimicing.

The job is not as simple as you appear to be claiming.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-11-18 21:30:58
So, then, this is done in analog or digital domains?

Doesn't matter but I usually do stuff like this in the digital domain because its easier.


If you did it in the digital domain, you've made an awful mistake and created a mass of aliased inharmonic components that are going to sound "very odd" at the least, unless you've done more than you indicated here. Did you oversample? Did you control your nonlinearities so that no products of the nonlinearity exceed fs/2?

I don't know who you think you are talking to, but you are obviously talking down/talking trash. But, I'll humor you with some straight answers to show good faith.

(q) Did I oversample?

(a) Don't have to. I just used a sufficiently high sample rate that the signfiicant harmonics were in the usual operational range of the sample rate I used.

I know that there are people who scare small boys by pointing out that out-of-band harmonics that are generated in the digital domain are aliased.  If you are generating highly distorted waveforms with program material that has tons of high frequency energy using say 44/16 then there can be audible artifacts. If you are applying a few percent distortion to regular music, the artifacts are usually not significant.

I typically do work like this at 192/24 or higher, and downsample to 44/16 for delivery. I also carefully check my work with test signals to make sure that practical = theoretical. I've been known to use sample rates up to 10 MHz if my testing deems it important.


So which did you do? What would the polynomial representation of your distortion mechanism look like?

In this case I was working with added second hamonic distortion (an ideal SET) or sharp clipping (an amp that is clean within its ratings, but under rated).


What was the sample rate multiplier?

Since I know there is nothing magic about integer multiplers for upsampling, I used whatever it takes to get to 192/24.


Did you split it into M/S and use different distortions on M/S as is appropriate?

That isn't what happens in the real world, chum. Most people use stereo amplifers with independent L and R channels, and don't matrix music to M/S to distort it. I'm beginning to think that you are all charged up with the technology of making musical samples, and unthinkingly want to apply conventions from there to everything, and with attitude.


How is this remotely germane to this discussion?  You're trying to compare short-term loudness differences on peaks (dynamic range perception) to long-term loudness perception?  You've completely confused the entire issue, and confounded your test with something that just frankly seems, well, irrelevant.

I'm not doing studies in human perception or making samples, I'm simulating what real world audiophiles do.


If you add a little distortion, then it doesn't bring up the level of the "A" sample, and if you add a lot then the "A" sample sounds like it is harsher.

You seem to want to argue with someone, not really think about the nature of the question.

The claim has been made that equipment with modest amounts of distortion creates the perception of greater loudness than its actual power capabilities would suggest.  IOW a 50 watt tube amp can sound as loud as a 100 watt SS amp because of the additional nonlinear distortion of the tubed amp.


Since, then, we're talking about apparent dynamic range, and  in particular instantaneous loudness, you're not even testing the known facts. I have no idea, what, really, you are testing, but I have little doubt that if you raise the AVERAGE loudness by a factor of 1.21, give or take, by distortion mechanisms, it's going to sound bizzare.

What I find truely bizarre is the chip on your shoulder. You've obviously been studying Schoepenhauer, and applied his first strategem for winning any argument despite its merits. S's first strategem is to take your opponent's ideas beyond their natural range.


Of course, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual effects of loudness enhancement in a dynamic signal. So what have we proven here?

That you're not here to share ideas and opinions, but to make yourself look smart by resorting to intellectual trickery.


Conclusion: You may make something sound harsher, and some listeners may equate harsher with louder, but in the end the educated ear is not fooled.

Darn, that was what I said to start out with.


No, you have to provide affirmative evidence for your assertion, not negative evidence for something else.

Actually, I don't have to do anything in particular.


So you have no reasonable justification for that issue.

You seem to be confused about issues and observations. My observation was that I tried a certain approach to using nonlinear distortion to increase the effective loudness of some music without actually amplifying it signfiicantly. I found out that it wasn't that easy to do.

Since the claim is usually made by people who are randomly hooking up audio gear and arbitrarily choosing operational conditions, it seems like this isn't going to happen as desired very often.


Now, you have to figure out how to:

Compare perceived dynamic range of two signals via blind test of low-order distortions.
Find out how much dynamic range enhancement sounds "good" and how much sounds "bad".
Figure out how to avoid aliasing in your distortion mechanisms.
Figure out what distortions to use in M and S if you're trying to mimic vinyl.
Figure out what level of antiphase low-frequency distortion is relevant.
Figure out what level of low-level noise, and of what frequency, to use, if LP is what you're mimicing.

The job is not as simple as you appear to be claiming.


Not surprisingly, with all the smoke and fire you've supported my point. Plus, you've tipped your hand as someone who needs to be watched carefully because you want to win arguments, not actually share useful knowlege or personal experiences.

Moderation edit: cleaned the quotes up so that others and I can see more clearly what's going on.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-11-18 23:00:51

So, then, this is done in analog or digital domains?

Doesn't matter but I usually do stuff like this in the digital domain because its easier.

Actually, it matters a great deal how you did it.
Quote
Quote
If you did it in the digital domain, you've made an awful mistake and created a mass of aliased inharmonic components that are going to sound "very odd" at the least, unless you've done more than you indicated here. Did you oversample? Did you control your nonlinearities so that no products of the nonlinearity exceed fs/2?

I don't know who you think you are talking to, but you are obviously talking down/talking trash. But, I'll humor you with some straight answers to show good faith.

I know you, Arny, you know me.  I'd think the signature line would be sufficient, given the number of offensively rude things you've said about me in public fora...
Quote
(q) Did I oversample?

(a) Don't have to. I just used a sufficiently high sample rate that the signfiicant harmonics were in the usual operational range of the sample rate I used.
So, your oversampling rate was higher than the order of the nonlinearity? Yes or no. If you wish to argue this, then you have to explain precisely what sampling rate and what input bandwidth you had.  You have to have some level of oversampling, and you have to assure the input bandwidth or you will get in trouble.

If you're doing this for a stationary, sine-wave signal, you're excluding the subject of the test, so this has to be done with real, actual material, using a real, actual 20khz bandwidth.

So, then, if that IS what you did, then you had to have, with a 2nd order distortion function, at least a 40khz bandwidth, i.e. you had to sample at at least 88.2K, to use standard rates.

Is this what you did, yes or no? How did you ensure that no distortions (or combinations, sums, differences, all the results of distortion) did not alias?

Quote
I typically do work like this at 192/24 or higher, and downsample to 44/16 for delivery. I also carefully check my work with test signals to make sure that practical = theoretical. I've been known to use sample rates up to 10 MHz if my testing deems it important.
I see, then, you did oversample.  But as you say below, you don't know the effective order of the sharp clipping, which is very, very high order distortion.  That may or may not be a problem, though, but let's examine your statemetn that you didn't have to upsample.

You are exactly oversampling, distorting, and downsampling, so you could have been constructive and said "yes, I did" rather than saying "I didn't need to".  Your "sufficiently high sampling rate" is bandwidth limited at the input, so it's oversampled. Or, if it's not, you have effectively oversampled via your signal's actual bandwidth. So you did oversample. Of course, this begs the question of source, now, let me guess, was the source a CD original, right? So you had to get up to that higher sampling rate somehow, right?

Or did you take an analog signal into this higher sampling rate immediately. 

Unless you started with a completely analog music signal, you DID upsample one way or another, then you distorted, and then you downsampled. But you said you didn't need to. I can't really quite understand your picking a fight words here.
Quote
In this case I was working with added second hamonic distortion (an ideal SET) or sharp clipping (an amp that is clean within its ratings, but under rated).

Quote
What was the sample rate multiplier?

Since I know there is nothing magic about integer multiplers for upsampling, I used whatever it takes to get to 192/24.

Multiplier does not have to be integer.  Lots of people can multiply by n*48/44.1 or vice versa. Who used the word "integer", Arny? Why did you make that up completely?
Quote
Quote
Did you split it into M/S and use different distortions on M/S as is appropriate?

That isn't what happens in the real world, chum.


In case you don't know, and it appears you don't, LP distortion mechanisms are quite different for vertical vs. horizontal modulation of the groove. Vertical is L-R, i.e. S, and horizontal is L+R, i.e M.

Since these two have different distortion mechanisms, a reasonable way to take these issues into account is to work in a domain that is understood. This isn't a complete solution, of course, to a 2D nonlinear problem, but it's better than a 1D solution.

So, since you are mistaken at this point, I think you need to go back, study the LP distortion spectra for L-R and L+R (the old AES reprints book will give you the data you need), and then try that, in terms of comparing to the "loudest part" of music, rather than "average level".

Then, maybe, you'll have a meaningful experiment.  As it stands, the results of your experiment are not surprising, and tell us nothing about the effect on perceived dynamic range. They do confirm that lots of distortion is bad, which I think we all agree with.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ExUser on 2008-11-19 02:04:50
Be careful guys. Some of the comments being made are getting kind of personal.

Woodinville, if there is a history between you two, please keep it out of this discussion. This thread is very close to breaking out in flames, and as I see it, you seem to be instigating.

The next time anyone makes any personal remarks here, I'm going to lock this thread.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-11-19 04:35:34
Be careful guys. Some of the comments being made are getting kind of personal.

Woodinville, if there is a history between you two, please keep it out of this discussion. This thread is very close to breaking out in flames, and as I see it, you seem to be instigating.

The next time anyone makes any personal remarks here, I'm going to lock this thread.



I regard Arny's test as inaccurate and irrelevant. For what it's worth, I rather do suspect that the results he did get are correct, merely totally irrelevant to the issue at hand.

I regard any such incitement as arising from Arny's "scaring little boys" and other such evasions, machinations, and provocations, easily visible above.

I disagree with Mr. Kreuger on this issue, and will continue to disagree with him. My disagreements are backed up, after examination, by work from people ranging from Fletcher to Jont Allen, combined with the AES reprints on vinyl technologies.  There is nothing "new" in the ideas or information, which have been around for quite a few years now.  I don't know anyone willing to fund a definitive test. Do you? If you do, let me know, we can talk about the issue privately.

These issues surrounding perceived dynamic range in no way endorse or validate the claims of LP as 'more accurate' or "having more information" both of which are measureable and testable, and which are simply clearly not true.  Any kind of analytic accuracy issue is easily resolved, CD is better. LP is worse. There is no dispute on this, assuming we accept the usual 20-20kHz bandwidth for human audio perception, which I think is reasonable and completely  justified in the case of teens or adults.  The ONLY possible analytic dispute is in bandwidth, and I, like most here, question its relevance.

The issue is purely in the realms of acoustics (in terms of missing information in a stereo signal) and psychoacoustics in the human auditory system.  Some people do in fact prefer LP, and that is not something that can be said to be right or wrong, unless and until somebody comes along and starts with the "more accurate", etc, claims. Such claims can be very, very wrong. On the other hand, L-R enhancement from stylus flexure, hinging, etc, varying distortion mechanisms, etc, are documented and well understood, and do result in perceptual effects. Certainly, they are inaccurate, but if someone prefers them, so be it.

That is all.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-11-19 08:17:43
jj, I'm not going to get between you and Arny, but I've got to call you out on one specific point, regarding something you've said a lot over the years (go look it up in AES).

I spent a significant amount of coin out of pocket to get AES membership and E-Library access ~1-2 years ago to further my own interest in vinyl, and while it was money astonishingly well spent, it did not explain all the LP distortions you claim it does. The papers are priceless for studying harmonic distortion, wow/flutter, tracking/tracing distortion (but note that a lot of that was done in other journals..), etc. But IIRC: stylus flexure, axial compliance/hinging (same thing right?), detailed L-R enhancement mechanisms, tonearm/table acoustic effects, generator nonlinearities, rheological properties of vinyl besides mere tidbits, etc - getting any kind of hard data or rigorous treatment on a lot of those things is excruciatingly difficult. In particular, there's a particularly infamous AES preprint on tonearm resonances - I think Ladegaard wrote it? - that is not in the E-Library. It just ain't there! But everybody quotes it six ways to Sunday and I wound up getting a hold of it as a PDF scan of it from a B&K app note. I think Hi-Fi World did more tonearm resonance work than was ever published in JAES.

In summary: could you please open up and be less coy in citing your references?  You're not posting in rec.audio.opinion anymore. You're not posting in Propeller Head Plaza anymore. You're posting at HA and (Arny willing) we're going to take you seriously when you make specific citations and we're not going to bludgeon you over the head if you misremember something. Not too much, anyway.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-11-19 10:00:44
jj, I'm not going to get between you and Arny, but I've got to call you out on one specific point, regarding something you've said a lot over the years (go look it up in AES).

I spent a significant amount of coin out of pocket to get AES membership and E-Library access ~1-2 years ago to further my own interest in vinyl, and while it was money astonishingly well spent, it did not explain all the LP distortions you claim it does. The papers are priceless for studying harmonic distortion, wow/flutter, tracking/tracing distortion (but note that a lot of that was done in other journals..), etc. But IIRC: stylus flexure, axial compliance/hinging (same thing right?), detailed L-R enhancement mechanisms, tonearm/table acoustic effects, generator nonlinearities, rheological properties of vinyl besides mere tidbits, etc - getting any kind of hard data or rigorous treatment on a lot of those things is excruciatingly difficult. In particular, there's a particularly infamous AES preprint on tonearm resonances - I think Ladegaard wrote it? - that is not in the E-Library. It just ain't there! But everybody quotes it six ways to Sunday and I wound up getting a hold of it as a PDF scan of it from a B&K app note. I think Hi-Fi World did more tonearm resonance work than was ever published in JAES.

In summary: could you please open up and be less coy in citing your references?  You're not posting in rec.audio.opinion anymore. You're not posting in Propeller Head Plaza anymore. You're posting at HA and (Arny willing) we're going to take you seriously when you make specific citations and we're not going to bludgeon you over the head if you misremember something. Not too much, anyway.


Well I'm not trying to be coy, they are references I read a long time ago, that could be startlingly well verified off some LP's.

The harmonic and tracing distortions are key, btw, but you have to ponder a bit to figure out how they apply.  The L/R vs, M/S stuff can be examined even by capturing LP output and measuring it, of course with blind identification you have to average the (deleted) out of it.  I'd love to cite the paper on actual vertical vs. horizontal distortions, but it's been about 20 years since I read it.

It may have been (sorry) a BSTJ article. Don't forget that BTL started out doing vertical/horizontal recording instead of +-45, until they recognized the problems with the differences in tracking. I have no way to search BSTJ any more, sadly.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Kees de Visser on 2008-11-19 10:35:59
BSTJ = Bell System Technical Journal
BTL = Bell Telephone Labs
I had to look those up and thought it might save other readers some time by posting it here

BTW, thanks to Canar and Axon for trying to keep HA free from usenet style discussions.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Slipstreem on 2008-11-19 10:53:46
May I respectfully request that literature used as evidence in the public domain be taken from the public domain? Suggesting that people join organisations that require money to be spent that they may not have in order to be able to verify the claims of others is very unhelpful and smacks of elitism to me. With the current economic climate, many of us are struggling just to keep a roof over our head and our stomach full, and I'd hate to see this forum gradually become of no use whatsoever to the average Joe if this trend is allowed to escalate. 

Cheers, Slipstreem. 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-11-19 20:02:09
May I respectfully request that literature used as evidence in the public domain be taken from the public domain? Suggesting that people join organisations that require money to be spent that they may not have in order to be able to verify the claims of others is very unhelpful and smacks of elitism to me. With the current economic climate, many of us are struggling just to keep a roof over our head and our stomach full, and I'd hate to see this forum gradually become of no use whatsoever to the average Joe if this trend is allowed to escalate. 

Cheers, Slipstreem. 


No, you can't. I could not move such material to the public domain even if I wanted to, it would be against the law, and constitute theft.  All IEEE, AES, BSTJ, etc, journals are copyrighted. Btw, BSTJ was a publically circulated journal, you did have to subscribe, of course.

If you want to limit discussion to "public domain" you are conciously limiting yourself to unrefereed, unverified, unconfirmed work for the most part. I don't think you want to do that.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2008-11-19 21:37:33
May I respectfully request that literature used as evidence in the public domain be taken from the public domain? Suggesting that people join organisations that require money to be spent that they may not have in order to be able to verify the claims of others is very unhelpful and smacks of elitism to me. With the current economic climate, many of us are struggling just to keep a roof over our head and our stomach full, and I'd hate to see this forum gradually become of no use whatsoever to the average Joe if this trend is allowed to escalate. 

Cheers, Slipstreem. 



Sorry, that's totally unrealistic.  In a perfect world, no one would ever have to go to a physical library to read a cited reference 'for free' (as I can for some years of JAES, which are bound and stacked at my local university library), and in some realms of science (e.g., life science)  more and more journals are giving free online access (though often not for the current issue), but in fact, most scientific and engineering journals today are not 'free access' to the 'lay' public; they require either a university account, or a subscription, or a society membership.

For that matter, most popular magazines don't make all their content available online either.  (And 'free online' isn't quite 'free' either, if you think about it -- someone, often yourself, is paying for internet access).

Axon's point is well taken, and it's something I have discussed before with others as well as him...that it would be a benefit to the perennial audio 'debates'  to compile at least a  *bibliography* of references germane to them, classified by subject or doled out onto appropriate wiki pages.  The problems are at  least twofold -- access to the 'databases' (I don't know offhand if the BSTJ is even indexed anywhere) , and  knowing what information is actually contained in what articles (something that cannot always be gleaned from titles; and older articles  to lack online abstracts).  Ideally, fair-use quotes from the references could be pulled regarding specific issues (e.g., measured distortions in the LP record/playback chain).

HA.org already hosts at least one thread that collects titles of useful books on audio and psychoacoustic modelling are noted (e.g., Zwicker and Fastl) , so this kind of group effort is at least remotely possible.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-11-19 21:37:40
jj, I'm not going to get between you and Arny,


Nor should you, I had no idea that "Woodinville" was JJ, and my lack of familiarity (as a new user) with how this forum works kept me unecessarily in the dark.

I'm approaching JJ offline to see if it is possible to resolve what apparently has been a long-simmering matter.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-11-20 06:26:28
Well I'm not trying to be coy, they are references I read a long time ago, that could be startlingly well verified off some LP's.
Right - I'm not doubting that. It's not hard to reproduce the SNR of a pressing or a laquer, or measure wow/flutter, or use tracking angle tests to measure HTA/VTA distortion values, etc. (If you don't mind cutting a few records of course.)

What I am doubting is that the "usual" references cover every distortion effect that is known or otherwise reasonably posited today. I really get the feeling like a really huge gap developed between the SOTA of vinyl technology and what wound up getting documented in JAES - and I also really get the feeling that not all of it is snake oil. I'm hoping that as much of this gap as possible isn't snake oil, and also that it wasn't handled as trade secrets that die when the principal investigators die.

Quote
The harmonic and tracing distortions are key, btw, but you have to ponder a bit to figure out how they apply.  The L/R vs, M/S stuff can be examined even by capturing LP output and measuring it, of course with blind identification you have to average the (deleted) out of it.  I'd love to cite the paper on actual vertical vs. horizontal distortions, but it's been about 20 years since I read it.

It may have been (sorry) a BSTJ article. Don't forget that BTL started out doing vertical/horizontal recording instead of +-45, until they recognized the problems with the differences in tracking. I have no way to search BSTJ any more, sadly.
 

Now we're getting somewhere  I'll keep an eye out for BSTJ articles. At the same time, weren't there also technical journals released by the other big players in the industry (I want to say CBS and RCA released journals)? Can you think of any other journals that held a particular interest in vinyl? Are there particular one-offs or application notes that need to be looked at, like from Bruel & Kjaer, or Discwasher's microscope studies?

Axon's point is well taken, and it's something I have discussed before with others as well as him...that it would be a benefit to the perennial audio 'debates'  to compile at least a  *bibliography* of references germane to them, classified by subject or doled out onto appropriate wiki pages.  The problems are at  least twofold -- access to the 'databases' (I don't know offhand if the BSTJ is even indexed anywhere) , and  knowing what information is actually contained in what articles (something that cannot always be gleaned from titles; and older articles  to lack online abstracts).  Ideally, fair-use quotes from the references could be pulled regarding specific issues (e.g., measured distortions in the LP record/playback chain).

HA.org already hosts at least one thread that collects titles of useful books on audio and psychoacoustic modelling are noted (e.g., Zwicker and Fastl) , so this kind of group effort is at least remotely possible
I will say that this goal a lot harder for vinyl than for psychoacoustics, because the papers were never collected into such extraordinarily comprehensive works as Zwicker/Fastl. But there really is a good need for this sort of info. Meaning, we should collect it.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Kees de Visser on 2008-11-20 07:28:50
I could not move such material to the public domain even if I wanted to, it would be against the law, and constitute theft.  All IEEE, AES, BSTJ, etc, journals are copyrighted.
JJ, isn't it allowed to at least quote parts of relevant articles ? I couldn't find copyright info on the AES website, but JASA states:
Quote
Permission is granted to quote from the Journal with the customary acknowledgment of the source. To reprint a figure, table, or other excerpt requires the consent of one of the authors and notification to AIP.
Participating in forum discussions shouldn't become too time consuming, but an occasional quote could be helpful IMHO.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-11-20 12:59:16
What I am doubting is that the "usual" references cover every distortion effect that is known or otherwise reasonably posited today.


I don't think that much new has come to light since the Kilmanus paper. BTW, the FM distortion due to offset arms that he found is pretty huge - not a subtle effect. Furthermore, it is effectively addressed by using a linear tracking system. Ironically, bent arms still rule, even in so-called SOTA systems.

Quote
I really get the feeling like a really huge gap developed between the SOTA of vinyl technology and what wound up getting documented in JAES


That would be optimism.

The proof of he pudding would be measurements on a so-called SOTA playback system that shows exceptional noise and distortion performance. Ironically, the limited evidence I've seen goes the other way -the more SOTA systems may even measure worse in ways that have to be audible.

Ironically, the best measurements on the web seem to come from fairly modest systems by the standards of the SOTA that you read about in the ragazines.

This actually makes sense, since the noise and distortion largely comes from the vinyl LP and how it is made. Unless you come up with an effective nonlinear compensator, the playback system has no choice but to play whatever is on the disc.

Jim Lesurf's papers that I cited make this point - there are some nasty problems inherent in the geometry of the recording and playback equipment. The Kilmanus/Rabinow (sp?) bent arm problem being one of them.

It also makes sense in a perceptual way. If the noise and distortion inherent in vinyl is what you prefer, then you may have more prefereence for a system that has *more* of those noises and distortions. 

It's something like what SETs seem to mean to some who prefer tubed amplifiers. The popular SETs seem to be made in a way that increases the common audible distortion modes that tubed amps are prone to. If you prefer tubed sound, then you get more of it with these SETs! ;-)


Quote
and I also really get the feeling that not all of it is snake oil. I'm hoping that as much of this gap as possible isn't snake oil, and also that it wasn't handled as trade secrets that die when the principal investigators die.


Is it snake oil? I think almost all of it  past certain fairly basic levels is gorgeous industrial design and the expert toolmaker's art. Audio jewelry to cynics like me. I'm not immune to the joys of the eye, but art wrapped around legacy technology is still legacy technology.

I prefer my works of art to have no function but art (paintings, photographs, or sculptures), or highly and/or uniquely functional pieces that are also good or great art (architecture, weapons, everyday applicances, etc)

It seems to me that a tiny but noisy subset of music lovers develop preferences for the peculiar menu of noises and distortions that are part and parcel of LP playback. I have no problems with that as long as they don't try to say that this represents some higher state of sonic accuracy than what is routinely done with for example, the CD format.

Regrettably almost 100% of the people I enounter, who have developed the vinyl preference, use one or more of the well-known audiophile mythologies about digtial to justify their preferences. Case in point the two RAHE posters who have pledged their allegance to the audibility of "missing spaces" between digital levels. Or, they retreat into solipsism, and we've also got some of that on RAHE right now. They think that LP has to be more accurate than good digital because that's what they naively perceive, relevant scientific facts be damned.

Quote
The harmonic and tracing distortions are key, btw, but you have to ponder a bit to figure out how they apply.  The L/R vs, M/S stuff can be examined even by capturing LP output and measuring it, of course with blind identification you have to average the (deleted) out of it.  I'd love to cite the paper on actual vertical vs. horizontal distortions, but it's been about 20 years since I read it.


At the mechanical level the LP medium is recorded M/S, but it is being treated in practice like it is a two stereo channels. Therefore analyzing the LP's  performance in the context of music listening, as stereo  channels is not automatically invalid. The downside of this is that sooner or later you're going to have to start thinking M/S if you want to understand some of the basic mechanisms that you see in play.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2008-11-23 07:02:18
As to persistent myths, I had occasion today to re-visit the paper by Meridian' J Robert Stuart, on 'Coding High Quality Digital Audio (http://www.meridian-audio.com/ara/coding2.pdf)'  (it was published as a white paper, and in essentially the same form in a March 2004 JAES issue) . It's a notable paper for several reasons, one being that it was an impetus for Meyer and Moran's work on comparing DSD to DSD-->PCM  using ABX methods (basically, Stuart's paper was a call for higher-rez delivery formats, but some felt he hadn't actually established scientific proof that they were audibly better than CD in the first place).  In that paper from four years ago, to his credit he notes two persistent myths about PCM:

Quote
Even among audio engineers, there has been considerable misunderstanding about digital audio, about
the sampling theory, and about how PCM works at the functional level. Some of these
misunderstandings persist even today. Top of the list of erroneous assertions are:
i.    PCM cannot resolve detail smaller than the LSB (least-significant bit).
ii.    PCM cannot resolve time more accurately than the sampling period.


I bring this up in this thread because IME  those two assertions are *STILL* almost guaranteed to come up in one guise or another in any 'debate' with a vinyl-loving anti-digital opponent -- the assertions are like the deathless 'flaws in evolution' lists that get passed around by creationists, despite having been roundly debunked by biologists years ago.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-11-23 08:48:46
Quote
Even among audio engineers, there has been considerable misunderstanding about digital audio, about
the sampling theory, and about how PCM works at the functional level. Some of these
misunderstandings persist even today. Top of the list of erroneous assertions are:
i.    PCM cannot resolve detail smaller than the LSB (least-significant bit).
ii.    PCM cannot resolve time more accurately than the sampling period.


I bring this up in this thread because IME  those two assertions are *STILL* almost guaranteed to come up in one guise or another in any 'debate' with a vinyl-loving anti-digital opponent -- the assertions are like the deathless 'flaws in evolution' lists that get passed around by creationists, despite having been roundly debunked by biologists years ago.


Over and over and over and over and over and over again, too.

Aaarrrrggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

But mostly in digital-hating folks of all bents.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-11-23 12:15:31
[quote name='krabapple' date='Nov 23 2008, 02:02' post='600754']
As to persistent myths, I had occasion today to re-visit the paper by Meridian' J Robert Stuart, on 'Coding High Quality Digital Audio (http://www.meridian-audio.com/ara/coding2.pdf)'  (it was published as a white paper, and in essentially the same form in a March 2004 JAES issue) . It's a notable paper for several reasons, one being that it was an impetus for Meyer and Moran's work on comparing DSD to DSD-->PCM  using ABX methods (basically, Stuart's paper was a call for higher-rez delivery formats, but some felt he hadn't actually established scientific proof that they were audibly better than CD in the first place).
[/quote]

Ironically, Meyer and Moran seem to have *not* supported Stuart's iniitiative.

Quote

> In that paper from four years ago, to his credit he notes two persistent myths about PCM:

Even among audio engineers, there has been considerable misunderstanding about digital audio, about
the sampling theory, and about how PCM works at the functional level. Some of these
misunderstandings persist even today. Top of the list of erroneous assertions are:
i.    PCM cannot resolve detail smaller than the LSB (least-significant bit).
ii.    PCM cannot resolve time more accurately than the sampling period.


I bring this up in this thread because IME  those two assertions are *STILL* almost guaranteed to come up in one guise or another in any 'debate' with a vinyl-loving anti-digital opponent.
[/quote]

We just saw erroenous assertion (1) come up on RAHE in the form of the "empty spaces" urban myth.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Paulhoff on 2008-11-23 15:31:08
I guess it is time for a little layman to add his two cents to all this. I can never, ever see how with all the processes used in order to make a vinyl record, that this processes can not in anyway add to the sound of the original recording. I can never, ever see how in the equipment used in playing back of a vinyl record that nothing again is added to what is now on the vinyl record. Everything in the chain adds and/or subtracts from the original recording, it is plain and simple.

I am also so tired of vinyl people telling me that I haven’t heard the magical system that will show me the light of vinyl recording, and the reason for this is because I still prefer digital. It doesn’t matter that now I heard words to rocks songs I never heard before, it doesn’t matter how much clearer music sounds to me, as long as I prefer digital, I’m not hearing and/or don’t know what to listen for, I just don’t have that GOLDEN EAR.

It is true that my system is not in the tens of thousands of dollars, has it is true that I don’t eat the most expensive ice-cream, but I still know what a grain of sand is when it is in my mouth coming from said ice-cream and I still know when I’m hearing less distortion on my equipment.

Bottom line is, that when you have to do so many things to the playback equipment (turntable) this should yell out loud that there is something wrong, but I guess that gets lost in that beloved added distortion.

Paul

     
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-11-24 13:51:57
[quote name='krabapple' date='Nov 23 2008, 02:02' post='600754']

Even among audio engineers, there has been considerable misunderstanding about digital audio, about
the sampling theory, and about how PCM works at the functional level. Some of these
misunderstandings persist even today. Top of the list of erroneous assertions are:
i.    PCM cannot resolve detail smaller than the LSB (least-significant bit).
ii.    PCM cannot resolve time more accurately than the sampling period.[/quote]

I bring this up in this thread because IME  those two assertions are *STILL* almost guaranteed to come up in one guise or another in any 'debate' with a vinyl-loving anti-digital opponent -- the assertions are like the deathless 'flaws in evolution' lists that get passed around by creationists, despite having been roundly debunked by biologists years ago.
[/quote]

I just became aware of myth 2 showing up in a technical paper that is making the rounds:

Published in Acta Acustica united with Acustica, Vol. 94, Pgs. 594–603 (2008). [ISSN 1610-1928]
(The Journal of the European Acoustics Association (EAA). International Journal on Acoustics.)
Temporal resolution of hearing probed by bandwidth restriction
Milind N. Kunchur
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208
Email: kunchur@sc.edu
(Dated: Received: 10 August 2007. Accepted: 21 May 2008)


"Every component’s bandwidth limit
(even if it behaves perfectly linearly) causes it to have a
finite relaxation time of τ∼1/ωmax; use of digital carriers
limits the shortest resolvable time interval to about half
the sampling interval (which for CD would be 11 μs);
and spatial dimensions of speaker drivers (or separations
between multiple drivers) introduce temporal smearing
and delays."

Key phrase:

"use of digital carriers limits the shortest resolvable time interval to about half
the sampling interval (which for CD would be 11 μs);"

The shortest resolvable time interval is closer to the sampling interval divided by the total number of distinct digital levels, depending on how you define "resolved", Just offhand, I think that amount of time is down in the picosecond range for the audio CD format.

You can think of this as follows. If I have two digital samples, the line drawn between them by a proper reconstruction process changes if either sample changes by as little as one count. That line defines the shortest resolvable time interval's unique reconstruction.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: botface on 2008-11-24 15:29:20
Just to add my two penny'th as a non-technical music lover  .....................

Some of the best music I have is on vinyl. Some of the best music I have is on CD. Some of the best music I have was recorded from FM radio. I guess to me the point is the music rather than the format. Isn't that the whole point of us all spending our hard-earned cash on music playback systems?

Quote
...........I still know when I’m hearing less distortion on my equipment.


I found this interesting in the light of a recent conversation I had with my dad. He told me that when he bought his first serious music system in the 1950's the holy grail of amplifier designers/manufacturers was to produce an amp with 0.1% total distortion. It was felt that this level would render distortion totally inaudible and irrelevant. Leak, a major British amplifier manufacturer of the day, apparently achieved this goal with the duly named "Point 1" amplifier. This left me wondering. Were they right? Does my amp, that probably has another zero or two in front of the "1", sound better than their 50 year old design? On the one hand it does matter to me. As I've said, I'm more interested in the music. On the other hand, it does matter if people are making claims about the superiority of one format over another on the basis of its superior measurements if nobody can hear the improvement anyway.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Paulhoff on 2008-11-24 16:05:31
On the other hand, it does matter if people are making claims about the superiority of one format over another on the basis of its superior measurements if nobody can hear the improvement anyway.

I for one hear the improvement.

It is my vinyl loving friend that has to play with his equipment all the time in order to be happy, not me. It is he who doesn't understand how digital really works, not me. It is he who is never happy and is playing again and again with his equipment, wire etc and/or other tweaks, not me. It is the misunderstandings of digital and so-called analog recordings that do bother me, not so much the sound.

Paul

     
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: botface on 2008-11-24 16:42:22

On the other hand, it does matter if people are making claims about the superiority of one format over another on the basis of its superior measurements if nobody can hear the improvement anyway.

I for one hear the improvement.

It is my vinyl loving friend that has to play with his equipment all the time in order to be happy, not me. It is he who doesn't understand how digital really works, not me. It is he who is never happy and is playing again and again with his equipment, wire etc and/or other tweaks, not me. It is the misunderstandings of digital and so-called analog recordings that do bother me, not so much the sound.

Paul

     

Paul,
      Sorry, my comments weren't aimed at you - or anybody else for that matter. Nor were they anti-digital. I've seen people claim that analogue is superior for reasons that they say they can measure and hear - I daresay your vinyl-loving friend can quote them.

I've also seen plenty of instances on this very forum of people worrying about whether codec "A" is better than codec "B" and asking for advice on what bitrate to use etc. I'm just saying "lighten up lads. Why not  listen to the music instead?". Having said that as a result of my conversation with my dad I am genuinely interested in knowing whether there is a generally accepted point at which further improvements are actually inaudible and whether we are all ultimately susceptible to relentless marketing, consumerism etc making us think want things we don't actually need.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2008-11-24 23:37:28
Ironically, Meyer and Moran seem to have *not* supported Stuart's iniitiative.



That's what I was trying to convey.  M&M were among the skeptics.  IIRC, Dr. S. Lipshitz was also a signatory to the Letter to the Editor objecting to Stuart's assumption (but I could be misremembering that, the xerox I made of it years ago is buried deep in a desk pile.)

THere's a 'limts of CD' thread going on on AVSforum as I write.  One guy pointed to an old Stereophile report of a 2000 AES conference session, where Drs. Stuart, Malcolm Hawksford and other panelists seem to have referenced certain listening tests conducted by dCS in support of the need for hi-rez; Stuart also refers to them in his JAES paper. Alas these data still remain unpublished....

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....52#post15083052 (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15083052#post15083052)
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-11-25 05:27:20
"use of digital carriers limits the shortest resolvable time interval to about half
the sampling interval (which for CD would be 11 ?s);"



Actually, this is right, but doesn't say what some may think it says.

If we have a COMPLETELY UNKNOWN signal, that is the detection for its onset IN ONE CHANNEL.

We have two channels, we KNOW a signal. Finding the advance/delay to the other channel is, despite the uncertainty above, MUCH MORE ACCURATE (roughly 1/fs/number_of_pcm_lvels).

I wonder if the original writer meant this was to show that interchannel delay was limited to quanta of 1/2 sample time. If so, the original writer is wrong.  If the original writer was simply stating the dt*df>1(or 1/2 for gaussian vs line), that's ok. But that is for one channel, and a completely unknown signal.

Since we can observe one channel when we look at the other, this work does not apply.  This is easy to tell, just make a gaussian pulse centered at 10khz with a 1kHz sigma. This is a bandlimited signal, there is no aliasing to speak of.

Delay it by much less than 1 sample, compare the 16 bit outputs. They are different. Q.E.D.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2Bdecided on 2008-11-25 11:11:03
THere's a 'limts of CD' thread going on on AVSforum as I write.  One guy pointed to an old Stereophile report of a 2000 AES conference session, where Drs. Stuart, Malcolm Hawksford and other panelists seem to have referenced certain listening tests conducted by dCS in support of the need for hi-rez; Stuart also refers to them in his JAES paper. Alas these data still remain unpublished....
IIRC these weren't double blind tests with checks for statistical significance.

It seems the papers aren't on the dCS website anymore, but for once Archive.org has them...
http://web.archive.org/web/20030220024414/...o.uk/papers.htm (http://web.archive.org/web/20030220024414/www.dcsltd.co.uk/papers.htm)

see especially
http://web.archive.org/web/20030407091305/...ers/effects.pdf (http://web.archive.org/web/20030407091305/www.dcsltd.co.uk/papers/effects.pdf)

Cheers,
David.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-11-25 13:14:56
THere's a 'limts of CD' thread going on on AVSforum as I write.  One guy pointed to an old Stereophile report of a 2000 AES conference session, where Drs. Stuart, Malcolm Hawksford and other panelists seem to have referenced certain listening tests conducted by dCS in support of the need for hi-rez; Stuart also refers to them in his JAES paper. Alas these data still remain unpublished....
IIRC these weren't double blind tests with checks for statistical significance.

It seems the papers aren't on the dCS website anymore, but for once Archive.org has them...
http://web.archive.org/web/20030220024414/...o.uk/papers.htm (http://web.archive.org/web/20030220024414/www.dcsltd.co.uk/papers.htm)

see especially
http://web.archive.org/web/20030407091305/...ers/effects.pdf (http://web.archive.org/web/20030407091305/www.dcsltd.co.uk/papers/effects.pdf)


The word 'blind' does not exist in the above paper.  They seem to have been sighted evaluations.

The paper is presented as a demonstration, not a test.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Kees de Visser on 2008-11-27 11:42:58
... just make a gaussian pulse centered at 10khz with a 1kHz sigma. This is a bandlimited signal, there is no aliasing to speak of...
Delay it by much less than 1 sample, compare the 16 bit outputs. They are different. Q.E.D.
Does it have to be a gaussian pulse ? Long time ago I've done the test with a 1kHz sine, upsampled 8x, added one sample to the file and downsampled back. The result was a perfect sine with an 1/8 sample delay and the difference with the 16 bit original was far above LSB level.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-11-27 21:05:27
... just make a gaussian pulse centered at 10khz with a 1kHz sigma. This is a bandlimited signal, there is no aliasing to speak of...
Delay it by much less than 1 sample, compare the 16 bit outputs. They are different. Q.E.D.
Does it have to be a gaussian pulse ? Long time ago I've done the test with a 1kHz sine, upsampled 8x, added one sample to the file and downsampled back. The result was a perfect sine with an 1/8 sample delay and the difference with the 16 bit original was far above LSB level.



No, I'm just providing an example that can be calculated from first principles, so nobody can argue about any filter, any this, any that, any anything...

With upsampling, of course, somebody could (incorrectly, but when has that ever stopped it?) argue that, oh, there was something "special" about your upsampling filter. Yeah, I know, it's ridiculous. But then again, I've heard it. No, I'm not going back to r.a.he to find out when, but yeah, somebody said that.  And, yeah, it's impossible to convey the depths of hilarity that should ensue in a mere text response.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Kees de Visser on 2008-11-27 22:04:51
With upsampling, of course, somebody could (incorrectly, but when has that ever stopped it?) argue that, oh, there was something "special" about your upsampling filter. Yeah, I know, it's ridiculous.
Ah, but I solved that by using a 2-ch file (2xmono), do the 8x upsampling, sample-shift only the Right channel and downsample the stereo file to 44.1. Luckily the processed Left channel produced a perfect null when subtracted from the original, whereas the Right channel didn't.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Woodinville on 2008-11-30 02:30:52
With upsampling, of course, somebody could (incorrectly, but when has that ever stopped it?) argue that, oh, there was something "special" about your upsampling filter. Yeah, I know, it's ridiculous.
Ah, but I solved that by using a 2-ch file (2xmono), do the 8x upsampling, sample-shift only the Right channel and downsample the stereo file to 44.1. Luckily the processed Left channel produced a perfect null when subtracted from the original, whereas the Right channel didn't.



Doesn't matter, no matter the evidence, they always have an excuse. (sigh)

Mumble. Waste of time, they want to remain ignorant.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Paulhoff on 2008-11-30 02:38:05
Doesn't matter, no matter the evidence, they always have an excuse. (sigh)

Mumble. Waste of time, they want to remain ignorant.

I completely concur

Paul

       

It is like a religion
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Kees de Visser on 2008-11-30 09:42:38
Mumble. Waste of time, they want to remain ignorant.
Mumble . . . in a democracy ignorance has a vote too, so why should they bother. (sigh)
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Paulhoff on 2008-11-30 13:06:03
Mumble. Waste of time, they want to remain ignorant.
Mumble . . . in a democracy ignorance has a vote too, so why should they bother. (sigh)

We are not talking about voting, are we. We are talking about facts.

Paul

     
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-12-01 18:10:19
We really are talking about a faith-based philosophy here. Some people get this immutable belief that vinyl is superior based on personal experience/revelation/whatever. In my experience, attempts to look more deeply at the situation generally result in "... but vinyl is always going to be better". And I can almost hear the words "... so why bother investigating this?" being silently added to that in their heads.

That shouldn't dissuade people from doing precisely that (investigating).
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Paulhoff on 2008-12-01 20:05:52
We really are talking about a faith-based philosophy here. Some people get this immutable belief that vinyl is superior based on personal experience/revelation/whatever. In my experience, attempts to look more deeply at the situation generally result in "... but vinyl is always going to be better". And I can almost hear the words "... so why bother investigating this?" being silently added to that in their heads.

That shouldn't dissuade people from doing precisely that (investigating).

Vinyl is very good for house siding.

Paul

     
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: singaiya on 2008-12-01 20:51:10
It's not so good for house siding (http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/bv.html).
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: botface on 2008-12-02 10:10:17
We really are talking about a faith-based philosophy here. Some people get this immutable belief that vinyl is superior based on personal experience/revelation/whatever. In my experience, attempts to look more deeply at the situation generally result in "... but vinyl is always going to be better". And I can almost hear the words "... so why bother investigating this?" being silently added to that in their heads.

That shouldn't dissuade people from doing precisely that (investigating).

Yes, and some people have a faith-based philosophy that digital is superior. In my experience, attempts to look more deeply at the situation generally result in "... but digital is always going to be better". And I can almost hear the words "... so why bother investigating this?" being silently added to that in their heads.

Your final sentence is key here. People tend just take one side or the other. I have investigated and to my ears digital is sometimes superior. Vinyl is sometimes superior. Sometimes FM radio is superior to both. It's all in the care taken over recording, mastering and manufacturing in my opinion
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ExUser on 2008-12-02 10:31:42
Yes, and some people have a faith-based philosophy that digital is superior. In my experience, attempts to look more deeply at the situation generally result in "... but digital is always going to be better". And I can almost hear the words "... so why bother investigating this?" being silently added to that in their heads.

Your final sentence is key here. People tend just take one side or the other. I have investigated and to my ears digital is sometimes superior. Vinyl is sometimes superior. Sometimes FM radio is superior to both. It's all in the care taken over recording, mastering and manufacturing in my opinion


You're placing a lot of weight on the word "superior". Digital formats have quantifiable audio reproduction capabilities. Given a sufficient number of bits, these capabilities these are verifiably (both objectively through measurements and subjectively through blind-testing (CD can reproduce the sound of vinyl, but not vice-versa)) superior to what analog formats such as vinyl records, cassette tapes, and FM radio are capable of reproducing. Sorry, your opinion holds no ground against what we can actually verify and is out-of-place in a "Scientific Discussion" forum.

Please re-read our Terms of Service, paying close attention to point 8.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: sld on 2008-12-02 13:48:26
It's all in the care taken over recording, mastering and manufacturing in my opinion

No one is talking about all these. These have nothing to do with the maximum quality that can be squeezed out of the respective delivery formats.

Recording quality is another story.

Mastering quality is another story.

Quality of vinyl discs is another story. Polycarbonate discs... the only quality to deal with for pressed discs is that they don't shatter while spinning in the drives. Excluding the peculiarities of the Red Book format, pit/land changes are 1s, and pits and lands are 0s.
http://www.laesieworks.com/digicom/Storage_CD.html (http://www.laesieworks.com/digicom/Storage_CD.html)
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: botface on 2008-12-02 14:04:58
Yes, and some people have a faith-based philosophy that digital is superior. In my experience, attempts to look more deeply at the situation generally result in "... but digital is always going to be better". And I can almost hear the words "... so why bother investigating this?" being silently added to that in their heads.

Your final sentence is key here. People tend just take one side or the other. I have investigated and to my ears digital is sometimes superior. Vinyl is sometimes superior. Sometimes FM radio is superior to both. It's all in the care taken over recording, mastering and manufacturing in my opinion


You're placing a lot of weight on the word "superior". Digital formats have quantifiable audio reproduction capabilities. Given a sufficient number of bits, these capabilities these are verifiably (both objectively through measurements and subjectively through blind-testing (CD can reproduce the sound of vinyl, but not vice-versa)) superior to what analog formats such as vinyl records, cassette tapes, and FM radio are capable of reproducing. Sorry, your opinion holds no ground against what we can actually verify and is out-of-place in a "Scientific Discussion" forum.

Please re-read our Terms of Service, paying close attention to point 8.

You seem to be misunderstanding. I made no claims about analogue formats being superior per se, nor would I as digital clearly wins hands down on measurements. I was simply pointing out that while in my opinion the superiority of digital is not always audible there are some members of this forum who are guilty of the same prejudice they scorn analogue-lovers for and won't even entertain the notion.

The only real opinion I intended to express was that that well recorded/mastered analogue sounds better to me than mediocre digital. I am surprised that you disagree and will gladly post examples if you would like to check it for yourself.

Incidentally I resent the TOS 8 warning when other people expressing unsupported opinions go unwarned. I have done double blind testing. It was about 20 years ago when there was a lot of debate about the relative merits of digital vs analogue. I don't still have the results as I didn't foresee the need to keep them. However, I do remember the conclusion of my testing. It was that given a decent recording and the absence of clicks from vinyl and hiss from tape or FM I couldn't tell digital from analogue and I doubt that most HA members could either. Maybe the people taking part in the tests you refer to just have better ears than me.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: sld on 2008-12-02 14:15:59
You seem to be misunderstanding. I made no claims about analogue formats being superior per se, nor would I as digital clearly wins hands down on measurements. I was simply pointing out that while in my opinion the superiority of digital is not always audible there are some members of this forum who are guilty of the same prejudice they scorn analogue-lovers for and won't even entertain the notion.

What I see is analogue fans (wrongly) extolling the superiority of vinyl over digital and digital fans / measurement fans / ceiling fans simply calling them out on that.

It isn't even about consensus. Raw data (like the mathematics in the 1st post) doesn't bother with consensus. It takes considerable purposeful will to deny that the data exists, or to reinterpret the data in a false way.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-12-02 14:37:37
Methinks botface neglected to make the format/recording distinction. Certainly examples exist of vinyl pressings that are clearly superior to CD masters of the same material, and vice versa, and I can imagine a few songs sounding better when run through an Optimod.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Paulhoff on 2008-12-02 14:48:18
Methinks botface neglected to make the format/recording distinction. Certainly examples exist of vinyl pressings that are clearly superior to CD masters of the same material, and vice versa, and I can imagine a few songs sounding better when run through an Optimod.

I certain that these examples recorded onto a CD from the vinyl will sound the same as the vinyl when played from said recorded CD.

Paul
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: sld on 2008-12-02 15:00:42
I certain that these examples recorded onto a CD from the vinyl will sound the same as the vinyl when played from said recorded CD.

Paul

You are right. Even the reverse may be true, and may well usually be true. I don't claim to know equipment since all I use is a simple DAC, laptop, and pretty cheap (and efficient) speakers for an audiophile..

Nevertheless, the recording from CD to vinyl will suffer an absolute drop in quality.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: MichaelW on 2008-12-02 15:34:18
I'm reminded here of a point Richard Brice makes in "Music Engineering." He's under no delusion whatever about the fact that digital is more linear than analogue, but he found that certain characteristic distortions in the playback of vinyl could, fortuitously, be beneficial for the stereo image.

He also makes the distinction between quality from an engineering point of view, which means linearity, in which digital wins all along the line, and quality from the point of view of what people like, in which, for some people, some distortions are pleasing.

I don't have an opinion, because I can't hear the differences except for pop, sizzle and crack, and am just glad not to have to mess with LPs any more, but euphonic distortion can be, you know, euphonic.

Peace and love.

Edit: I got the name of the Brice book wrong. I first called it Sound Engineering. The real title, in contrast to my misremembering, is significant
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2Bdecided on 2008-12-02 16:26:10
given a decent recording and the absence of clicks from vinyl and hiss from tape or FM I couldn't tell digital from analogue and I doubt that most HA members could either.
It depends on the content. It's a lot easier to have inaudible clicks and hiss with pop music than with classical.

Cheers,
David.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: botface on 2008-12-02 16:42:40

You seem to be misunderstanding. I made no claims about analogue formats being superior per se, nor would I as digital clearly wins hands down on measurements. I was simply pointing out that while in my opinion the superiority of digital is not always audible there are some members of this forum who are guilty of the same prejudice they scorn analogue-lovers for and won't even entertain the notion.

What I see is analogue fans (wrongly) extolling the superiority of vinyl over digital and digital fans / measurement fans / ceiling fans simply calling them out on that.

It isn't even about consensus. Raw data (like the mathematics in the 1st post) doesn't bother with consensus. It takes considerable purposeful will to deny that the data exists, or to reinterpret the data in a false way.

Since you have quoted me I assume you are taking issue with what I said rather than making a general statement. That being the case you seem to be deliberately misinterpreting me. I certainly wasn't "...extolling the superiority of vinyl over digital" nor am I seeking to "..deny that the data exists, or to reinterpret the data in a false way". So why say that I am?

The 1st post to which you refer goes on to say "..mastering on CDs is often terrible while the mastering on records is often made somewhat better" but you didn't take issue with that as far as I can see
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: sld on 2008-12-02 16:53:44
That being the case you seem to be deliberately misinterpreting me. I certainly wasn't "...extolling the superiority of vinyl over digital" nor am I seeking to "..deny that the data exists, or to reinterpret the data in a false way". So why say that I am?

My apologies if my post slanted that way. You certainly haven't been doing all that I mentioned, and I was recalling all the innumerable trolls that have previously graced HA.org (and websites, and other audio forums). Again, sorry. 

Quote
The 1st post to which you refer goes on to say "..mastering on CDs is often terrible while the mastering on records is often made somewhat better" but you didn't take issue with that as far as I can see

I was referring to the maths he was playing with. And he was right about the mastering trend. The mastering on many CDs is horrible, and digital clipping sounds really bad. I don't know about the mastering on vinyl, but even if the recording is pushed to clipping, I believe it doesn't degrade as sharply as it would on CD. Have people complained about shoddy mastering on vinyl in similar significant proportion to that on CDs?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2008-12-02 17:57:37
Your final sentence is key here. People tend just take one side or the other. I have investigated and to my ears digital is sometimes superior. Vinyl is sometimes superior. Sometimes FM radio is superior to both. It's all in the care taken over recording, mastering and manufacturing in my opinion



In that case, it's inaccurate to write '[digital|vinyl|FM] is sometimes superior'.  That implies that the format is being evaluated, and that's not what you you mean.  What you mean is, the product that *happened to be* delivered in whatever format, was superior to a different mastering of the same product delivered in a different format.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2008-12-02 18:15:04
I'm reminded here of a point Richard Brice makes in "Sound Engineering." He's under no delusion whatever about the fact that digital is more linear than analogue, but he found that certain characteristic distortions in the playback of vinyl could, fortuitously, be beneficial for the stereo image.

He also makes the distinction between quality from an engineering point of view, which means linearity, in which digital wins all along the line, and quality from the point of view of what people like, in which, for some people, some distortions are pleasing.

I don't have an opinion, because I can't hear the differences except for pop, sizzle and crack, and am just glad not to have to mess with LPs any more, but euphonic distortion can be, you know, euphonic.

Peace and love.



In addition to acknowledging that what he's enjoying is euphonic distortion, Mr. Brice also allows that the original microphone and mixing setup affect whether LP playback of the recording is more 'euphonic' than CD.  These are not admissions one generally sees made by vinylphiles.

Have people complained about shoddy mastering on vinyl in similar significant proportion to that on CDs?



Not so much  these days (I see sporadic complaints that some LPs are dubbed from digital masters, with smashed dynamic range intact)....but if you are old enough to have been around when there were no CDs, you'll remember how bad LP mastering could be.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: botface on 2008-12-02 19:27:33
@sld - apology accepted

@2Bdecided - depends on how you define classical music. Baroque for instance doesn't usually have a wide dynamic range - except maybe in a largo movement - and can easily hide hiss,  and a typical 19th century symphony will have cresendos loud enough to hide almost any imperfections

Quote
In that case, it's inaccurate to write '[digital|vinyl|FM] is sometimes superior'.  That implies that the format is being evaluated, and that's not what you you mean.  What you mean is, the product that *happened to be* delivered in whatever format, was superior to a different mastering of the same product delivered in a different format.

Not quite. I'm not necessarily comparing the same product in different formats but you're quite right that I'm saying it's not as straightforward as digital = good, analogue = bad/inferior
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-12-02 20:19:14
Yes, and some people have a faith-based philosophy that digital is superior.


That doesn't take any faith at all. It is a well-known fact on many levels.

However, a judgement of superiority presumes a relevant critiera.  If sonic accuracy is the most important thing to you, then digital will always sound better because in all the history of analog formats, none of them achieved perfect sonic accuracy with real-world musical program material. Plain old vanilla 16/44 digital has *always* worked at that level, as long as it was a commercial format.

Quote
In my experience, attempts to look more deeply at the situation generally result in "... but digital is always going to be better".


"Always" is a big word. People rarely actually mean it when they use it.

"Better" is a meaningless word if there is no agreement about perforamnce standards. If your goal for a medium is recreation of the experience of playing a vinyl LP, then the LP medium is always better than anything else.

Quote
People tend just take one side or the other.


People generally take the digital side without thinking much about it. Those who do think about it still generally take the digital side.

The fact that some people take the vinyl side is a bit of a mystery, unless you realize that their definition of better is not dominated by sound quality concerns, but that issues like familiarity and sentimentality are more important to them.

Quote
I have investigated and to my ears digital is sometimes superior.


I suspect that you are not saying what you mean, or your criteria for judging better is varying.

As a means for storing music, digital is always better is sound quality is of the essence. However there's the medium, and there is the message. Just because a medium is superior does not mean that it will always provide you with your favorite message.  You seem to be confusing the two.

Quote
Vinyl is sometimes superior. Sometimes FM radio is superior to both. It's all in the care taken over recording, mastering and manufacturing in my opinion


You are obviously confusing the message with the medium.  Recording, and mastering relate to the message.  As far as manufacturing goes, it is very important for vinyl because vinyl is not a go, no-go medium like digital.  There are a jillion audible quality graduations that are inherent in the vinyl medium. No two LPs sound exactly and precisely the same.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ExUser on 2008-12-02 20:20:26
Not quite. I'm not necessarily comparing the same product in different formats but you're quite right that I'm saying it's not as straightforward as digital = good, analogue = bad/inferior
No, the distinction is more nuanced than that. Some listeners might not be able to distinguish the two. This is not to say that the noise floor of vinyl/fm/analog/whatever cannot be measured and compared to the noise floor of digital. However, "digital" is broad. Are we talking 8-bit/11kHz? 32-bit/192kHz?

The characteristics of digital can also be measured, and the upper-end of digital is vastly in excess both of the frequencies we can hear as humans and the noise floor we can reproduce as scientists recording signals. It is yet unclear whether or not CD audio is distinguishable from digital formats with superior properties. On the other hand, I've yet to hear a consumer analog source that I could not hear the analog distortion on.

I've yet to see the truth of the assertion that vinyl is indistinguishable from CD properly evaluated, but I admit that such a claim sounds like nonsense given my personal experiences with vinyl. The properties of FM radio and other analog sources are quantifiably inferior to vinyl so I'm not even going to bother going there.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-12-02 20:22:38
Not quite. I'm not necessarily comparing the same product in different formats


Then you are very confused about what you are comparing and how to compare things in general. And as long as you keep mixing up medium and message, and avoid using reliable references, you are pretty much guaranteed to remain confused.

Quote
but you're quite right that I'm saying it's not as straightforward as digital = good, analogue = bad/inferior


All other things being equal, and relating to recorded audio media performance, digital = practically perfect, and analog = something that is audibly less than perfect.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: botface on 2008-12-02 20:42:09
Not quite. I'm not necessarily comparing the same product in different formats but you're quite right that I'm saying it's not as straightforward as digital = good, analogue = bad/inferior
The properties of FM radio and other analog sources are quantifiably inferior to vinyl so I'm not even going to bother going there.

High speed open reel tape inferior to vinyl? I think not



Not quite. I'm not necessarily comparing the same product in different formats


Then you are very confused about what you are comparing and how to compare things in general. And as long as you keep mixing up medium and message, and avoid using reliable references, you are pretty much guaranteed to remain confused.


Quote
but you're quite right that I'm saying it's not as straightforward as digital = good, analogue = bad/inferior


All other things being equal, and relating to recorded audio media performance, digital = practically perfect, and analog = something that is audibly less than perfect.

I disagree. I think it's perfectly reasonable to compare say a live BBC broadcast of a string quartet with a "loudness wars" CD and make qualitative judgements about the relative sound quality of the two.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: greynol on 2008-12-02 20:50:03
1) Why do you assume that Canar said all other analog sources are inferior to vinyl when this is not what he said?

2) Regarding your response to Arnold, what part of "All other things being equal" don't you understand?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ExUser on 2008-12-02 20:50:49
High speed open reel tape inferior to vinyl? I think not


While I respect the comment you are making here (I was not anally-retentive enough to add a couple words to prevent this kind of nonsense), your behaviour is that of a troll. I see very little evidence to the contrary here. You are cherry-picking the claims you dislike and ignoring completely the thrust of the arguments being made.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: botface on 2008-12-02 21:08:13
High speed open reel tape inferior to vinyl? I think not


While I respect the comment you are making here (I was not anally-retentive enough to add a couple words to prevent this kind of nonsense), your behaviour is that of a troll. I see very little evidence to the contrary here. You are cherry-picking the claims you dislike and ignoring completely the thrust of the arguments being made.

Apologies. I reacted a bit quickly as I felt that I was being ganged-up on a bit. I'm definitely not trolling. And I'm not ignoring counter arguments. From where I sit it seems that people are ignoring what I'm suggesting and simply reiterating the same statements about digital's superiority, which I have not at any stage disagreed with

1) Why do you assume that Canar said all other analog sources are inferior to vinyl when this is not what he said?

2) Regarding your response to Arnold, what part of "All other things being equal" don't you understand?

1) I've apologised to Canar for reacting a bit hastily
2) I simply disagree that all other things have to be equal in order to make valid judgements about relative sound quality
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2008-12-02 21:15:10
High speed open reel tape inferior to vinyl? I think not
I'm not exactly sure if that was ever meant, but FWIW, I recall a JAES paper that explicitly stated that lacquer masters beat 15ips on noise and distortion. Granted, that was before Dolby, but that was also before DMM too.

I've heard tape hiss on several records.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ExUser on 2008-12-02 21:42:04
From where I sit it seems that people are ignoring what I'm suggesting and simply reiterating the same statements about digital's superiority, which I have not at any stage disagreed with.
So then digital is superior and you're making no claims to the contrary? Would you mind succinctly recapitulating what exactly you're trying to discuss here? This is going around in circles. There is no faith needed to place trust in digital recordings. The scientific measurements speak for themselves.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-12-02 22:19:24
I disagree. I think it's perfectly reasonable to compare say a live BBC broadcast of a string quartet with a "loudness wars" CD and make qualitative judgements about the relative sound quality of the two.


It *is* perfectly reasonable to compare a live BBC broadcast of a string quartet with a "loudness wars" CD and make qualitative judgements about the relative sound quality of the two, as they are two different representations of the same performance.

But, it is downright simple-minded to attribute your opinion of  "loudness war" CD solely to the fact that it is a CD, and ignore the fact that the differences in production steps such as mastering explain the difference.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: greynol on 2008-12-02 22:26:10
...not to mention that the CD is not the only chosen format to deliver hyper-compressed audio:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=66401 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=66401)
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2008-12-02 22:30:25
High speed open reel tape inferior to vinyl? I think not
I'm not exactly sure if that was ever meant, but FWIW, I recall a JAES paper that explicitly stated that lacquer masters beat 15ips on noise and distortion. Granted, that was before Dolby, but that was also before DMM too.


I think you need to cite that article.  There may have been a point in history where lacquers beat 15 ips 2 track, but 15 ips 2 track was more of a moving target.

Besides, if you play the lacquer a few times, it would degrade. The 15 ips tape was more consistent.

Quote
I've heard tape hiss on several records.


So have I, or so it seemed.

But without hearing the master tape, that would not be known for sure.

Disc mastering chains can have a good number of signal processors in them, and they can do all sorts of things. For example, if there is a compressor in the mastering chain, it has the effect of reducing the dynamic range of the source. Or if you will, it can bring up the noise floor of just about anything.

In the end, this is just a data point that means nothing without more information about the context.


...not to mention that the CD is not the only chosen format to deliver hyper-compressed audio:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=66401 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=66401)



Agreed.

The two plots provide evidence that the hypercompression was in procesing that was common to both.

Furthermore the lower plot shows that the LP had excess low frequency phase shift, which is no big surprise.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: botface on 2008-12-03 09:40:31
From where I sit it seems that people are ignoring what I'm suggesting and simply reiterating the same statements about digital's superiority, which I have not at any stage disagreed with.
So then digital is superior and you're making no claims to the contrary? Would you mind succinctly recapitulating what exactly you're trying to discuss here? This is going around in circles. There is no faith needed to place trust in digital recordings. The scientific measurements speak for themselves.

I agree it's going round in circles so I'll say no more after this. Here's what I actually said :

"People tend just take one side or the other. I have investigated and to my ears digital is sometimes superior. Vinyl is sometimes superior. Sometimes FM radio is superior to both. It's all in the care taken over recording, mastering and manufacturing in my opinion"

and

"I was simply pointing out that while in my opinion the superiority of digital is not always audible there are some members of this forum who are guilty of the same prejudice they scorn analogue-lovers for....."

The 1st statement doesn't look partricularly contentious to me so I guess it's the 2nd one that's upset some people
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: sld on 2008-12-03 11:51:44
"I was simply pointing out that while in my opinion the superiority of digital is not always audible there are some members of this forum who are guilty of the same prejudice they scorn analogue-lovers for....."

The 1st statement doesn't look partricularly contentious to me so I guess it's the 2nd one that's upset some people

Of course it does, because the simplicity of logic in determining that, comparing mediums, digital CD format is superior to vinyl, is crystal clear for those 'some people'.

If a CD recording can sound worse than that of the same song on a vinyl record, then it can be stated for sure (not even an assumption, but a certainty) that something went wrong with the recording/mastering/processing-whatever before the CD was pressed, and not because of any limitations of the digital CD format that can add noise or distortion.

Vinyl sounds better, more warm, less 'grating', because of added distortion. Pleasing, yes, but it will be too much of a stretch to implicitly equate 'added distortion' with 'superior' when accurate audio reproduction is the goal of music-lovers (or so I think).
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Paulhoff on 2008-12-03 13:51:50
"People tend just take one side or the other. I have investigated and to my ears digital is sometimes superior. Vinyl is sometimes superior. Sometimes FM radio is superior to both. It's all in the care taken over recording, mastering and manufacturing in my opinion"

Yes, this is understood, but no matter how good the master behind the keyboard, a toy piano still has it limits no matter how much you have grown to like the sound.

Paul

     
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2008-12-03 17:39:53
...not to mention that the CD is not the only chosen format to deliver hyper-compressed audio:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=66401 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=66401)



nor are 'high rez' digital delivery formats a guarantee of full dynamic range:



http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1009384 (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1009384)
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: KarlU on 2009-01-20 08:08:17
I personally feel that 16 to 24 bit is a small, but noticeable step up. I have a soundcard which lets me change the bit depth while music is playing. I have played around with it and I would say that it was about as noticeable as going from 720p to 1080p on a 35 inch tv. Few would notice. But at close glance, you can see the extra detail. But when you go from 44.1k to 48k BIG difference. Most noticeable when a quiet passage is played at a high volume. CD's suffer a digital hiss, which are basically the steps in between samples. DVDs sound clearer than cd's to me because of these extra "steps." More steps in the same amount of space = smaller step. But the sound is of a lower quality than a cd, if that even makes sense. I am not very good at expressing my thoughts through words sometimes :'(. And I was joking about the lower.


Here is my stance. I am a guy who still buys records and loves to flac em 96k times a second with 24 bits in them samples.  You could have the normal 1(16 bit) lock on your doorknob. But I have a deadbolt, locking knob, and a chain.(24 bit) And instead of a wooden or plastic (44.1 khtz)door,  I have a steel door.

Am I actually safer(sound better) than you just because of that, maybe. But I definitely feel safer.

Was that too dumb


I realize that I am responding to an old post. But I just got here 

Digital audio, properly implemented, is not stepwise. Properly dithered, 16-bit digital audio can have a dynamic range of nearly 115 dB -- even greater than the 96 dB implied by 2^16. For produced, pre-recorded sources, it is more than enough for any human listener. The dither completely removes the stepwise nature of digital audio, and provides a noise floor that is identical to analog.

24-bit audio actually challenges modern electronic technology, which is really only capable of about 22-bits of precision before thermocouple effects and other noise sources kick in. 24-bits is more useful in production studios, where you don't know in advance how loud a live performance will get, and the level build-up that occurs when you sum channels together. 24-bits are for the headroom, not the precision.

That is not to say that you might not hear differences between the two, but it is more likely to be due to secondary effects, such as how well the ADC, DACs, and dither are implemented, and perhaps even more significantly, output level shifts when you switch between 16 and 24 bits. Loudness differences affect subjective quality in listening tests, which is why A/B/X tests are always carefully level matched.

Some computer sound cards and computer multimedia applications do not bother to preserve dither throughout the audio processing chain, which can result in raw, undithered 16-bit sound. Switching to 24 bits may mitigate (or change in some way) some of the processing deficiencies.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Guest_Tuberocity_* on 2009-03-12 19:05:28
An oversimplifictaion for those without a physics degree. lol Having spent my formative years in the 70's, I love vinyl! With high end gear vinyl is awsome. However, I can now decipher lyrics on CD that were masked by muddiness on vinyl. There is obviously more information being read by the laser than the needle. Also, vinyl requires $$$ as an inexpensive table and cartridge sound terrible, not to mention the need for a phono preamp. Hmm, my $100-$400 cd players or my $5000 turntable/cartridge/preamp? Bang for the dollar is certainly with CD!
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: disfrontman on 2009-05-10 00:28:27
Hey everyone. My inaugural post.

I have been fascinated by this discussion from the recording artist's perspective. I am working on a major art rock musical and was contemplating releasing it on vinyl as well as CD/mp3. I was wondering if having the lacquer cutting people use 24 bit files rather than 16 bit would yield a better product. Now I'm not so sure it would matter. Still, I love the look and experience of vinyl, with that great canvas for artwork!

With regard to audio perceptions of bit depth, I would have to say that from my own personal experience there is a WORLD of difference between 16 and 24 bit--but only at extremely low levels. If you listen to the same program material recorded with the same field equipment at either bit depth, during extremely low levels (stuff barely above the noise floor) the 16 bit will sound like a low-res digital answering machine, while the 24 bit will still sound decent, comparatively speaking. Both will sound much worse than higher level program information. I remember hearing the difference between 16 and 20 bit ADATs in the 90's when I worked in the music retail industry. There was a real difference.

Having said that, for regular program material they are utterly indistinguishable for 99.999% of the population, so I don't want to oversell the difference. From an artist's perspective, however, 24 bit is nice because it offers a much lower potential noise floor and more headroom prior to clipping. This really helps keep things clean at mixdown. Once the final mix is finished, the whole thing is going to be compressed for the intended medium anyway, so headroom is far less important an issue. 44.1/16 bit is fine--in fact, most people are going to bit-crush the music into their iPods anyway. FM radio will have a field day with recorded mixes, compressing them radically. So 24 bit is almost totally worthless, except for the hard-core audiophile market.

I am in more of an internal debate with regard to sample rate than bit depth. If humans can really only hear to about 20k, why wouldn't 44.1k be sufficient? Yet lots of people swear that 96k and even 192k recordings are better. Better for whom? Unless you are a dog or a bat, and listening on scientific audio lab equipment that can actually recreate 48k or 96k audio signals, the point just has to be moot. A set of iPod headphones are certainly one hell of a hi-pass/low-pass filter combo!

If someone can sell me on the ultra-high harmonic content argument, I'm all ears. Unfortunately, none of my mics can record it, peaking out at around 20k typically, so even if those harmonics are there, I'm effectively prevented from benefitting from them.

Back to the original point of this thread. Until I read all of this, I, too, was under the impression that some sort of analog "magic" was occurring with LPs that digital could not accurately replicate. While the math might be questionable, the first post was a fascinating one--that 24 bit might have more resolution than an LP could physically compete with on the atomic level! Funny.

There may be some "euphonic" enhancements that are occurring with LPs, not to mention the visual/tactile accompanying experiences and the huge nostalgia factor, but after reading your discussions I now doubt it is anything more than that. I was wondering why the vinyl replication houses all want 44.1/16 bit sound files and not anything more hi-res. Now I know.

Bart
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-05-11 03:15:24
I have been fascinated by this discussion from the recording artist's perspective.  I am working on a major art rock musical and was contemplating releasing it on vinyl as well as CD/mp3.  I was wondering if having the lacquer cutting people use 24 bit files rather than 16 bit would yield a better product.  Now I'm not so sure it would matter.  Still, I love the look and experience of vinyl, with that great canvas for artwork!


By most accounts, vinyl is equivalent to 12-13 bits, and maybe 32-40 KHz sampling. This ignores some other built-in problems with vinyl.

I don't know that many people are doing much in the way of recovering their investment in vinyl productions these days.

Quote
With regard to audio perceptions of bit depth, I would have to say that from my own personal experience there is a WORLD of difference between 16 and 24 bit--but only at extremely low levels.


Well, as perceptions anything goes, but as far as scientific audiblity goes, lots of people have looked for reliable proof of the audible benefits of 24 bits, but they all come up empty.

You'll find a lot of emphasis on HA for reliable listening tests - look at TOS 8 and many of the sticky threads. You've probably never done a truely reliable listening test. Few people in general have, but there is a lot of activity like that  around here.

Quote
If you listen to the same program material recorded with the same field equipment at either bit depth, during extremely low levels (stuff barely above the noise floor) the 16 bit will sound like a low-res digital answering machine,


Been there, done that and you are simply not well-informed. I've done that comparison dozens of times, as have a number of others around here, and once you control all of the relevant variables, it is a very tough comparison to get any traction on. I'm hardly alone in this, there is a well-known test like this that was published in the JAES in the past year.

When people say the difference is obvious, they're tacitly admitting that the alleged listening test they did was not good.

Quote
while the 24 bit will still sound decent, comparatively speaking.  Both will sound much worse than higher level program information.  I remember hearing the difference between 16 and 20 bit ADATs in the 90's when I worked in the music retail industry.  There was a real difference.


Now you're talking anecdotes, not science. An ADAT is a complex machine with many relevant variables besides just the bit depth of the converters. In the early 1990s, converter quality and pricel/performance were nothing like they are today. Doing proper comparisons between players and recorders is non-trivial. The really nasty part is geting two digital players to synch within a few milliseconds and keeping them that way. If you don't you can identify them by swithching back and forth and noticing the switch-over. Leading switching to lagging sounds different than lagging switching to leading when the synchoronization is off by even as little as a dozen milliseoncs or two.

Quote
Having said that, for regular program material they are utterly indistinguishable for 99.999% of the population, so I don't want to oversell the difference.


Nope, its a problem of 16 and 24 bits being difficult or impossible for *everybody* to distinguish, even well-known and very successful recording engineers like Katz and Massenberg.

Quote
From an artist's perspective, however, 24 bit is nice because it offers a much lower potential noise floor and more headroom prior to clipping.


I do a ton of live recording - I've recorded over a thousand choirs and maybe 400 or 600 bands and orchestras in the past 4 years. One of  my irritating little sayings is that "If you can't set levels and headroom within 20 dB, you shouldn't be passing yourself off as a professional recording engineer."  The bottom line is that there are very few recordings with more than about 70 dB dynamic range, which still leaves you with 24 or more dB headroom with 16 bits.

Quote
This really helps keep things clean at mixdown.


Multitrack mixdowns can have more variation in dynamic range because of the range of possible numbers of tracks. I mix from 2 to 22 tracks for live recording, and up to 36 independent sources for live sound. I can see the advantages of mixing at 24 bits or even 32 bit floating point.  The good news is that I have a 24 bit digital console (02R96) and 32 bit floating DAW software.

Quote
Once the final mix is finished, the whole thing is going to be compressed for the intended medium anyway, so headroom is far less important an issue.


I would say that 95% or more of the work I do never sees any adjustment of dynamic range other than normal mixing and gain riding. I have over 50 channels of compression at my disposal and simply never see the need for it.

Quote
44.1/16 bit is fine--in fact, most people are going to bit-crush the music into their iPods anyway.


IPODs and their many competitors are often just fine. Many are effective competitors or replacements for even the finest CD players.  Most will play non-lossy compressed files, either AIFF, WAV, or FLAC and the like.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: rpp3po on 2009-05-11 03:39:59
I have been fascinated by this discussion from the recording
With regard to audio perceptions of bit depth, I would have to say that from my own personal experience there is a WORLD of difference between 16 and 24 bit--but only at extremely low levels.


Well, as perceptions anything goes, but as far as scientific audiblity goes, lots of people have looked for reliable proof of the audible benefits of 24 bits, but they all come up empty.

You'll find a lot of emphasis on HA for reliable listening tests - look at TOS 8 and many of the sticky threads. You've probably never done a truely reliable listening test. Few people in general have, but there is a lot of activity like that  around here.


Why answer so hard-edged to hist first post? The stated difference isn't even wrong. When you just turn up the volume high enough, low-volume passages are very easily ABXable between 16 and 24 bit. The only problem would be that this chosen volume level would result in turbofan jet engine sound pressure levels for the louder parts of the same record. The difference between 24 and 16 must be analyzed at non pathological volume levels, that don't hurt your ears at full amplitude, and there 24 and 16 bit are indeed indistinguishable as all serious testing has shown.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: greynol on 2009-05-11 04:12:12
44.1/16 bit is fine--in fact, most people are going to bit-crush the music into their iPods anyway.

This is a gross oversimplification of lossy compression.  Maybe it was intentional, I don't know.

You do realize that mp3 coefficients are floating point and that the format is actually capable of delivering greater dynamic range than 16-bit LPCM, right?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-05-11 12:33:14
Why answer so hard-edged to hist first post? The stated difference isn't even wrong. When you just turn up the volume high enough, low-volume passages are very easily ABXable between 16 and 24 bit. The only problem would be that this chosen volume level would result in turbofan jet engine sound pressure levels for the louder parts of the same record. The difference between 24 and 16 must be analyzed at non pathological volume levels, that don't hurt your ears at full amplitude, and there 24 and 16 bit are indeed indistinguishable as all serious testing has shown.


Why bother taking us for a stroll down excluded-middle lane? If I turn up the volume on a 24 bit recording, I can show that a 36 bit recording would be even better!

The difference between 24 and 16 bit *cannot* be found if you consider an entire real-world recording, and restrict yourself to real-world music-lover listening contexts.  The noise floor of even the better recordings around is 10-25 dB above the 16 bit noise floor. The noise floor of a typical listening room is at least 35 dB SPL, which puts peak levels at an ear-shattering 131 dB.

If you got a story to tell, please make sure it conforms to TOS8 and involves real world recordings played in real-world spaces.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: disfrontman on 2009-05-12 00:38:01
I have been fascinated by this discussion from the recording artist's perspective.  I am working on a major art rock musical and was contemplating releasing it on vinyl as well as CD/mp3.  I was wondering if having the lacquer cutting people use 24 bit files rather than 16 bit would yield a better product.  Now I'm not so sure it would matter.  Still, I love the look and experience of vinyl, with that great canvas for artwork!


By most accounts, vinyl is equivalent to 12-13 bits, and maybe 32-40 KHz sampling. This ignores some other built-in problems with vinyl.

I don't know that many people are doing much in the way of recovering their investment in vinyl productions these days.

Quote
With regard to audio perceptions of bit depth, I would have to say that from my own personal experience there is a WORLD of difference between 16 and 24 bit--but only at extremely low levels.


Well, as perceptions anything goes, but as far as scientific audiblity goes, lots of people have looked for reliable proof of the audible benefits of 24 bits, but they all come up empty.

You'll find a lot of emphasis on HA for reliable listening tests - look at TOS 8 and many of the sticky threads. You've probably never done a truely reliable listening test. Few people in general have, but there is a lot of activity like that  around here.

Quote
If you listen to the same program material recorded with the same field equipment at either bit depth, during extremely low levels (stuff barely above the noise floor) the 16 bit will sound like a low-res digital answering machine,


Been there, done that and you are simply not well-informed. I've done that comparison dozens of times, as have a number of others around here, and once you control all of the relevant variables, it is a very tough comparison to get any traction on. I'm hardly alone in this, there is a well-known test like this that was published in the JAES in the past year.

When people say the difference is obvious, they're tacitly admitting that the alleged listening test they did was not good.

Quote
while the 24 bit will still sound decent, comparatively speaking.  Both will sound much worse than higher level program information.  I remember hearing the difference between 16 and 20 bit ADATs in the 90's when I worked in the music retail industry.  There was a real difference.


Now you're talking anecdotes, not science. An ADAT is a complex machine with many relevant variables besides just the bit depth of the converters. In the early 1990s, converter quality and pricel/performance were nothing like they are today. Doing proper comparisons between players and recorders is non-trivial. The really nasty part is geting two digital players to synch within a few milliseconds and keeping them that way. If you don't you can identify them by swithching back and forth and noticing the switch-over. Leading switching to lagging sounds different than lagging switching to leading when the synchoronization is off by even as little as a dozen milliseoncs or two.

Quote
Having said that, for regular program material they are utterly indistinguishable for 99.999% of the population, so I don't want to oversell the difference.


Nope, its a problem of 16 and 24 bits being difficult or impossible for *everybody* to distinguish, even well-known and very successful recording engineers like Katz and Massenberg.

Quote
From an artist's perspective, however, 24 bit is nice because it offers a much lower potential noise floor and more headroom prior to clipping.


I do a ton of live recording - I've recorded over a thousand choirs and maybe 400 or 600 bands and orchestras in the past 4 years. One of  my irritating little sayings is that "If you can't set levels and headroom within 20 dB, you shouldn't be passing yourself off as a professional recording engineer."  The bottom line is that there are very few recordings with more than about 70 dB dynamic range, which still leaves you with 24 or more dB headroom with 16 bits.

Quote
This really helps keep things clean at mixdown.


Multitrack mixdowns can have more variation in dynamic range because of the range of possible numbers of tracks. I mix from 2 to 22 tracks for live recording, and up to 36 independent sources for live sound. I can see the advantages of mixing at 24 bits or even 32 bit floating point.  The good news is that I have a 24 bit digital console (02R96) and 32 bit floating DAW software.

Quote
Once the final mix is finished, the whole thing is going to be compressed for the intended medium anyway, so headroom is far less important an issue.


I would say that 95% or more of the work I do never sees any adjustment of dynamic range other than normal mixing and gain riding. I have over 50 channels of compression at my disposal and simply never see the need for it.

Quote
44.1/16 bit is fine--in fact, most people are going to bit-crush the music into their iPods anyway.


IPODs and their many competitors are often just fine. Many are effective competitors or replacements for even the finest CD players.  Most will play non-lossy compressed files, either AIFF, WAV, or FLAC and the like.

Yikes! people here are pretty testy.

I thought I qualified my assertion with regard to hearing the difference between bit depth samples, but evidently not well enough. In the demo I heard, yes, we ridiculously cranked up a very, very soft passage, far beyond "real world" normal listening. IIRC, it was an ambient reverb tail on a sustaining grand piano. To be fair, this was a sales demo and wasn't done in a lab. If super-cranking 24 bit could prove 32 bit better, and if that's the comparison you want to make to my "anecdote", then fine--it's all pointless. In the "real world" people can't hear the difference between 24 and 16 bit recordings, all other things being equal. Not 99.999% as I suggested in my initial post. 100%. Will that suffice? As far as synching ADATs is concerned, we didn't really worry about it. We played the cuts sequentially, not simultaneously. Having said that, if we wanted to A/B them simultaneously the BRC we would have been using back then could have sync'ed them to within sample (1/48,000 of a second). Close enough?

So you seem to have an abrasive way of agreeing with me when I stated that it really didn't make much of a difference. Or you have a pretty low tolerance threshold for the opinions and reflections of new posters who haven't read every JAES blurb or scanned the previous 500 threads on these topics.

Also, to be honest, no, I didn't really consider the fact that mp3s could actually be better than a standard 44.1/16 bit CD. I'm a musician, not an engineer. I was referring to how 99% of the listening public tend to use mp3 players--with lossy compressed versions of their favorite songs. Artists worry about these things.

Evidently I haven't been sufficiently indoctrinated enough to offer a post here not worth shredding over minutiae.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: greynol on 2009-05-12 01:31:14
...no more indoctrinated than learning that 2+2=4.

I recognize that you've qualified your ability to distinguish 16 bit from 24 through a massive volume increase.

To stir the pot regarding the ability to distinguish audibility between 16-bit and 24-bit, allow me to point to this discussion:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=610558 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=49843&view=findpost&p=610558)

Considering that this thread is about vinyl and that it's already well established that 16/44 is more than adequate for delivering vinyl transparently, I think this other discussion would be a better place to take the general discussion about 16-bit vs. 24-bit.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Ron Jones on 2009-05-12 03:20:50
I was referring to how 99% of the listening public tend to use mp3 players--with lossy compressed versions of their favorite songs.  Artists worry about these things.

They shouldn't. Engineers and technologists should worry about lossy compression. Artists need only concern themselves with making good music (and, secondarily, making money...if they choose)
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: disfrontman on 2009-05-12 03:28:02
...no more indoctrinated than learning that 2+2=4.

2+2=4? Wow. Even the mods are testy here.

Quote
I recognize that you've qualified your ability to distinguish 16 bit from 24 through a massive volume increase.

Thank you, I guess.

Quote
To stir the pot regarding the ability to distinguish audibility between 16-bit and 24-bit, allow me to point to this discussion:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=610558 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=49843&view=findpost&p=610558)

Considering that this thread is about vinyl and that it's already well established that 16/44 is more than adequate for delivering vinyl transparently, I think this other discussion would be a better place to take the general discussion about 16-bit vs. 24-bit.

Fine. If it is already been conclusively established that 44.1k/16 bit is "more than adequate" for delivering vinyl, then what would be the point of any further discussion on this thread? Apparently none.

I regret ever posting here.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: saratoga on 2009-05-12 03:51:30
Fine.  If it is already been conclusively established that 44.1k/16 bit is "more than adequate" for delivering vinyl, then what would be the point of any further discussion on this thread?  Apparently none.

I regret ever posting here.


Whats the point of posting to tell us theres no point in posting?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: singaiya on 2009-05-12 04:25:37
Fine.  If it is already been conclusively established that 44.1k/16 bit is "more than adequate" for delivering vinyl, then what would be the point of any further discussion on this thread?  Apparently none.


I asked this question years ago and this was the thread:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....69&hl=vinyl (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=49969&hl=vinyl)
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2Bdecided on 2009-05-12 10:56:24
If it is already been conclusively established that 44.1k/16 bit is "more than adequate" for delivering vinyl, then what would be the point of any further discussion on this thread?
Well, if you want to post some speculation without evidence, there would be no point at all.

If you have an LP which is faithfully reproduced by, say, 24-bit 96kHz recording, but has audible problems at 16-bit 44.1kHz, we'd all be interested to hear some samples.

You could time-align and level-match the files, and play them in foobar2k's ABX comparator to determine whether the difference is real (= you can tell which is which just by listening) or imagined (=you can't tell which is which when you don't know which one you're listening to).

HA is about finding real problems and fixing them - not waffle and imagination.

Cheers,
David.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: disfrontman on 2009-05-17 22:18:58
HA is about finding real problems and fixing them

I'm glad for that, and I hope to learn more from HA over the next few months that can directly help me with my recording efforts.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ExUser on 2009-05-17 22:39:51
Welcome on board, disfrontman. If you can make it through the initial hazing, where our better-informed users tell you in no uncertain terms where and how you're wrong, there's a whole lot you can learn here. I hope you enjoy your stay.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2009-05-18 05:43:44
disfrontman, you're on the right track regarding 16 vs 24 bit...it's a valid issue for recording and production, but for home playback, it really is only an issue if you are listening to the quietest part of a track, at levels that will be deafening during the loudest parts.  I applaud you for including the caveats right up front.  (That said, I believe most home gear these days will convert 16 bit input to 24 bit anyway, if there is any DSP enabled in the signal path, which there often is; so in days to come it may just make sense to bring digital to the consumer at 24 bits right off the bat.)


As for higher sample rates at playback (or even recording), the utility of upping the SR really hinges on how audible you think modern oversampling DAC filter stages will be.  Because the evidence that content difference from using higher sample rates than 44.1 -- which is to say, the broader bandwidth -- is, in itself, likely to be audible, with music at normal levels, is just not that solid.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Hanuman on 2009-05-24 14:55:14
The thing I'm finding intriguing about this whole thread is that 96/24 is just a complete non-issue with regard to computing resources nowadays. Even a Mac Mini includes 96/24 capability on it's in-built I/O. Now, I accept that you might want to ration your processing resources more rigorously if you're simultaneously working with dozens of tracks with strings of inserts on many of them, but we're talking about the simple matter of a stereo capture of a record here. Perhaps 44.1/16 is "more than adequate" for vinyl but I don't see that anybody has actually proven that here (is it provable?). Regardless of the merits of 44.1/16, I respectfully suggest that 96/24 might be better. It can't be worse, can it? Essentially, what is being discussed here are the capabilities and limitations of a nascent recording medium developed 30-plus years ago for the technology of the day verses a more contemporary version incorporating some of the 30-plus years of improved knowledge more appropriate for the tools of now. What's wrong with going with the present?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2009-05-24 21:14:01
The thing I'm finding intriguing about this whole thread is that 96/24 is just a complete non-issue with regard to computing resources nowadays. Even a Mac Mini includes 96/24 capability on it's in-built I/O. Now, I accept that you might want to ration your processing resources more rigorously if you're simultaneously working with dozens of tracks with strings of inserts on many of them, but we're talking about the simple matter of a stereo capture of a record here. Perhaps 44.1/16 is "more than adequate" for vinyl but I don't see that anybody has actually proven that here (is it provable?).


Yes, it is provable.  Record an LP to digital.  Compere the recording to the original, double-blind, level-matched, and time-synched.  REpeat as needed until you're convinced one way or the other, based on the # of correct identifications vs the significance threshold .

Quote
Regardless of the merits of 44.1/16, I respectfully suggest that 96/24 might be better. It can't be worse, can it?


Theoretically (http://www.lavryengineering.com/documents/Sampling_Theory.pdf), it could, but it's not likely to today.

Quote
Essentially, what is being discussed here are the capabilities and limitations of a nascent recording medium developed 30-plus years ago for the technology of the day verses a more contemporary version incorporating some of the 30-plus years of improved knowledge more appropriate for the tools of now. What's wrong with going with the present?


What's being discussed here are the claims for inherent audible improvement, und thus NEED FOR, the higher rates,  that have never been definitively demonstrated. 

Please explain why 24 bits would be intrinsically *needed* for an LP capture, to capture all its audible attributes?  As opposed to practical reasons why one might use it (e.g., post-capture processing)  Then do the same for higher sample rates.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2Bdecided on 2009-05-24 21:41:52
The thing I'm finding intriguing about this whole thread is that 96/24 is just a complete non-issue with regard to computing resources nowadays.
In ten years time it will be possible to use 10MHz sampling instead of 96kHz, with the same minimal impact on computing resources.

Does that means that you should?

Cheers,
David.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Hanuman on 2009-05-25 13:56:41
Please explain why 24 bits would be intrinsically *needed* for an LP capture, to capture all its audible attributes?  As opposed to practical reasons why one might use it (e.g., post-capture processing)  Then do the same for higher sample rates.


Just by recording a signal, using any kind of method, we degrade it. There doesn't yet exist a means of passing an analogue signal through a recording or transmission chain in such a way as to result in an identical version of the signal on output as appeared at the input. It follows that any recording system (even a well-designed digital one) will compromise the fidelity of the analogue signal that is fed into it, even if that signal is the undoubtably flawed output of a vinyl record playing system. Now, by all objective measures available, digital recording at 44.1Khz 16-bit seems to have vinyl well covered - wider dynamic range, greater resolution, flatter frequency response, no wow & flutter etc, etc. But it's not the point. While it's fair enough to say that a certain storage medium has greater performance potential than another in all these areas, it's not correct logic to therefore conclude that that superior medium is all you need for faithful capture of the other without loss. There will be a loss. We know that 44.1/16 despite it's many virtues, is not a perfect recording method (no method is) and that the signal will be degraded. Considering the practicality and cheapness of using higher data-rates, I don't see much merit in not seeking to make less imperfect recordings with less signal-degradation by using those higher rates.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: lvqcl on 2009-05-25 15:33:32
So, 24-bit signal with nothing but noise in least significant 8 bits is undoubtedly better than 16-bit signal?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: cliveb on 2009-05-25 16:42:58
Considering the practicality and cheapness of using higher data-rates, I don't see much merit in not seeking to make less imperfect recordings with less signal-degradation by using those higher rates.

An LP pressed on the highest quality heavyweight virgin vinyl has about 12 bits of resolution (on a good day with a following wind), and contains overwhelmingly noise and distortion above about 18kHz. These are well known limitations of the medium itself. Recording it at 96/24 instead of 44.1/16 is only "less imperfect" in the sense that you capture a more faithful representation of its noise and high frequency distortion. *Every last nuance* of the actual musical signal that comes off an LP is captured with as much accuracy at 44.1/16 as it is at 96/24. Higher data rates simply confer no benefit whatsoever.

"So what?, it can't hurt" you might respond. Well: in the domain of digital transfer of LPs, where you might be interested in doing a bit of restoration work, it very well *can* hurt. And the reason is that some restoration tools might not support those higher data rates. Why deny yourself access to potentially useful tools in exchange for the false confidence that you're making "more accurate" recordings?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Hanuman on 2009-05-25 19:15:23
"So what?, it can't hurt" you might respond. Well: in the domain of digital transfer of LPs, where you might be interested in doing a bit of restoration work, it very well *can* hurt. And the reason is that some restoration tools might not support those higher data rates. Why deny yourself access to potentially useful tools in exchange for the false confidence that you're making "more accurate" recordings?


I'm well aware of that possible limitation and I completely concur. When I started doing my own restoration work this definitely was a concern. But I have to say that after careful testing I didn't find that the efficacy of my chosen restoration toolset was compromised by the higher sampling-rate and bit-depth.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: rpp3po on 2009-05-25 20:16:05
Just by recording a signal, using any kind of method, we degrade it. There doesn't yet exist a means of passing an analogue signal through a recording or transmission chain in such a way as to result in an identical version of the signal on output as appeared at the input. It follows that any recording system (even a well-designed digital one) will compromise the fidelity of the analogue signal that is fed into it, even if that signal is the undoubtedly flawed output of a vinyl record playing system.

If you want to travel to smartass land, I would recommend visiting the capitol and not just hanging out at the periphery. There is no such thing as a verifiable identity between two analog signals beyond your measurement equipment's sensitivity. So your claim is not verifiable in an absolute sense. You either can prove identity within measurable bounds or defend a not verifiable position.

Whether a secondary recording medium is capable to completely capture a primary medium's information is verifiable within the bounds of both available measurement equipment and average variation between playback rounds. A modern ADC/DAC combo can easily capture as much information, that there is less or equal variation between playback of the secondary medium and the a vinyl record than between several playback rounds of the original record.

Now, by all objective measures available, digital recording at 44.1Khz 16-bit seems to have vinyl well covered - wider dynamic range, greater resolution, flatter frequency response, no wow & flutter etc, etc. But it's not the point.

Well, actually that is the point.

While it's fair enough to say that a certain storage medium has greater performance potential than another in all these areas, it's not correct logic to therefore conclude that that superior medium is all you need for faithful capture of the other without loss. There will be a loss.

With proper analog to digital conversion you will not be able to identify the digital record out of three (two analog). Even with the finest measurement equipment.

We know that 44.1/16 despite it's many virtues, is not a perfect recording method (no method is) and that the signal will be degraded. Content with <96db dynamics and no frequencies above 22kHz is not degraded in any measurable way.
Considering the practicality and cheapness of using higher data-rates, I don't see much merit in not seeking to make less imperfect recordings with less signal-degradation by using those higher rates.

The merit is the same why you don't use 500kHz/128 bit recordings: sanity. You don't want to waste bits that are either all zeroes or noise in 100% of the time. The only domain where Hi Rez makes sense is recording and mastering. You can amplify quiet instruments without getting too close to the noise floor and you can generally process very heavily without getting into the limits discrete recording. As a final storage format anything above Redbook hasn't much merit. Feel free to try a round of ABXing.

Moderation: Very slight re-wording of the second paragraph as requested.  For those that do not know, you have only an hour to edit your posts before they are locked, at which time you need to PM a request to either a moderator or administrator. http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=72003 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=72003)
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2009-05-26 02:53:06
Any more questions, Hanuman? 
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Hanuman on 2009-05-26 07:55:08
Any more questions, Hanuman? 


None for now. I respect all of the opinions offered.

Cheers

Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2Bdecided on 2009-05-26 11:04:43
It's an interesting question - if the noise floor of a source is at x dB below peak, and the next stage unavoidably adds its own noise at y dB below peak, what value of y gives a "good enough" rendition.

y=x doesn't work - noise powers add - the result is trivial to ABX if the original noise was audible by itself.

So, y<x - but by how much?

Well, assuming you're trying to fool the human ear, the added noise needs to be inaudible. That's a non-trivial thing to work out. I don't have the data for noise masking noise.

Assuming you don't want to change the existing noise spectrum by more than 0.1dB at any point, the second noise source needs to be at least 38dB below the first at every frequency.

If you relax the constraint to allow a 1dB change, you still need to keep the second noise source 18dB below the first.

As I said, I don't have the data to hand to know what the correct number is - and this is the number required to ensure that you don't make any audible change to the original background noise - in practice, you might not care about doing that - you might just care about the music  - that's hopefully a lot louder than the original noise.

Cheers,
David.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Hanuman on 2009-05-26 12:03:38
So, 24-bit signal with nothing but noise in least significant 8 bits is undoubtedly better than 16-bit signal?


A parallel can be drawn to the field of archival feature film restoration where the minimum scanning requirement seems to be 4K now and will probably be 6K & 8K soon. Combine this with the 16-bit quantizing and internal processing pipeline of the scanner and you're definitely working towards beautifully recorded grain! This kind of over-engineering is most certainly encountered in professional applications.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: rpp3po on 2009-05-26 12:58:14
Film makers actively worked with different film materials to exploit certain visual effects. It makes a lot of sense to preserve this character and grain, especially since it is clearly visible on a big screen. In contrast to film grain, sub 96db audio noise is not clearly audible underneath a signal, if at all only between tracks, and in the case of vinyl it wasn't even specifically selected by an artist but is a result of the manufacturing process and the record's physical condition. In contrast to audio, visual reproduction is today also still far away from the eyes' physical constraints (especially dynamic range).
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: pdq on 2009-05-26 13:15:48
Assuming you don't want to change the existing noise spectrum by more than 0.1dB at any point, the second noise source needs to be at least 38dB below the first at every frequency.

Are you sure about that calculation? I only get 16 dB.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-05-26 13:41:51
Assuming you don't want to change the existing noise spectrum by more than 0.1dB at any point, the second noise source needs to be at least 38dB below the first at every frequency.

Are you sure about that calculation? I only get 16 dB.


+1

This assumes uncorrelated noise sources, so when you add the noise sources, you do a square root of sum of the squares thing.

It also assumes that the power spectral density of the two noise sources are the same, which rarely happens in the real world.

From a perceptual standpoint, the noise source is usually random or pseudo-random, but the signal is coherent. Since coherent sources are more 10-20 dB more audible at equal levels, the noise source is usually less noticable perceptually than it is numerically.

The simplest way to work this out for me has been to create two noise sources with the desired PSD in CEP, and then add them together in CEP. This gives me the extra option of actually listening to the result.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-05-26 13:47:17
So, 24-bit signal with nothing but noise in least significant 8 bits is undoubtedly better than 16-bit signal?


A parallel can be drawn to the field of archival feature film restoration where the minimum scanning requirement seems to be 4K now and will probably be 6K & 8K soon. Combine this with the 16-bit quantizing and internal processing pipeline of the scanner and you're definitely working towards beautifully recorded grain! This kind of over-engineering is most certainly encountered in professional applications.



If the spectral contents of the noises are the same, then a 24-bit signal with nothing but noise in least significant 8 bits is exactly the same as a properly-dithered 16-bit signal. In practice, we usually over-dither a tad.

But, you're not going to hear any difference between music with a 99 dB dynamic range, and 93 dB dynamic range, unless you play silly games like listen to fade outs or attenuate the signal by 40 dB and listen with the gain turned up by 40 dB.  Most music has a noise floor that is 65-75 dB down, and that's actually pretty high quality music compared to the average.

Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2Bdecided on 2009-05-26 15:31:58
Assuming you don't want to change the existing noise spectrum by more than 0.1dB at any point, the second noise source needs to be at least 38dB below the first at every frequency.

Are you sure about that calculation? I only get 16 dB.

+1

+2

10 x log10, not 20 x log10   

Which means you need to be ~6dB down for 1dB change.


Good - I thought that -38dB number looked silly.

Cheers,
David.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Hanuman on 2009-05-26 15:54:32
Film makers actively worked with different film materials to exploit certain visual effects. It makes a lot of sense to preserve this character and grain, especially since it is clearly visible on a big screen. In contrast to film grain, sub 96db audio noise is not clearly audible underneath a signal, if at all only between tracks, and in the case of vinyl it wasn't even specifically selected by an artist but is a result of the manufacturing process and the record's physical condition. In contrast to audio, visual reproduction is today also still far away from the eyes' physical constraints (especially dynamic range).


All fair enough points and it is true that visual analogies are only partially applicable to aural. I don't agree, though, with the implication that visible film grain is necessarily there by artistic choice. Obviously we've seen plenty of grain-for-effect and a cinematographer will be be mindful of grain characteristics when selecting a stock (and a speed) but for most shots in most films, grain just comes along for the ride, just like noise. Sometimes other creative decisions in the colour correction process raise the grain to levels that were never expected and aren't actually wanted. So, it goes out like that and ends up on the print and in the historical record (for some future archivist to perfectly preserve!).
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: rpp3po on 2009-05-26 16:59:18
I agree, grain is not necessarily a product of artistic choice. And that's probably the case most of the time.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Kees de Visser on 2009-05-26 20:06:54
It's an interesting question - if the noise floor of a source is at x dB below peak, and the next stage unavoidably adds its own noise at y dB below peak, what value of y gives a "good enough" rendition.
Funny that you bring this up. I've actually been thinking about it just a few days ago and also did some quick testing. I took two uncorrelated stereo noise sources with identical spectra. When the second source is added to the first, at a gradually increasing level, I start to hear a difference when the second source is about 12 dB softer. Please feel free to do your own test to verify this value.
Perhaps it would be interesting to do some more testing, e.g. by adding white noise (like dither) to gaussian noise, to find out at what level dither can become audible in the presence of analog noise.
If 12 dB is about correct, a digital recording with dither requires about 2 bits more "resolution" (SNR) than its input signal to avoid an audible increase of the noise floor. Does that make sense ?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-05-27 14:55:29
Assuming you don't want to change the existing noise spectrum by more than 0.1dB at any point, the second noise source needs to be at least 38dB below the first at every frequency.

Are you sure about that calculation? I only get 16 dB.

+1

+2


Here's a summary of real world situations:

Dynamic range of channel, dB   Dynamic range of signal, dB   Loss of dynamic range due to imperfect channel, dB

-96   -85   -0.332
-96   -80   -0.108
-96   -75   -0.034
-96   -73   -0.022
-96   -70   -0.011
-96   -65   -0.003
-96   -60   -0.001
-96   -55   0.000
-96   -50   0.000

Dynamic range of channel, dB   Dynamic range of signal, dB   Loss of dynamic range due to imperfect channel, dB

      
-93   -85   -0.639
-93   -80   -0.212
-93   -75   -0.068
-93   -73   -0.043
-93   -70   -0.022
-93   -65   -0.007
-93   -60   -0.002
-93   -55   -0.001
-93   -50   0.000

Dynamic range of channel, dB   Dynamic range of signal, dB   Loss of dynamic range due to imperfect channel, dB

      
-90   -85   -1.193
-90   -80   -0.414
-90   -75   -0.135
-90   -73   -0.086
-90   -70   -0.043
-90   -65   -0.014
-90   -60   -0.004
-90   -55   -0.001
-90   -50   0.000

Dynamic range of channel, dB   Dynamic range of signal, dB   Loss of dynamic range due to imperfect channel, dB

   
-85   -85   -3.010
-85   -80   -1.193
-85   -75   -0.414
-85   -73   -0.266
-85   -70   -0.135
-85   -65   -0.043
-85   -60   -0.014
-85   -55   -0.004
-85   -50   -0.001
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Kees de Visser on 2009-05-31 11:56:23
Here's a summary of real world situations:
These numbers are definitely interesting, but aren't necessarily linked to perceived loudness. The spectrum of the noise is important too, which is the whole point of noise shaping e.g.
Alexey Lukin has published some loudness comparisons of dither noises  on his website Rightmark (http://audio.rightmark.org/lukin/dither/dither.htm). Note the discrepancy between measured noise levels and perceived loudness.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-05-31 12:25:54
Here's a summary of real world situations:
These numbers are definitely interesting, but aren't necessarily linked to perceived loudness. The spectrum of the noise is important too, which is the whole point of noise shaping e.g.
Alexey Lukin has published some loudness comparisons of dither noises  on his website Rightmark (http://audio.rightmark.org/lukin/dither/dither.htm). Note the discrepancy between measured noise levels and perceived loudness.


Yes, you are right in that my calculations presume that the noise in the program material and the noise in the channel are equally audible. If the noise in the channel is due to shaped dither, then it is likely to be less audible than the noise in the program material, which makes my numbers pessimistic.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ShowsOn on 2009-05-31 13:25:54
All fair enough points and it is true that visual analogies are only partially applicable to aural. I don't agree, though, with the implication that visible film grain is necessarily there by artistic choice. Obviously we've seen plenty of grain-for-effect and a cinematographer will be be mindful of grain characteristics when selecting a stock (and a speed) but for most shots in most films, grain just comes along for the ride, just like noise. Sometimes other creative decisions in the colour correction process raise the grain to levels that were never expected and aren't actually wanted. So, it goes out like that and ends up on the print and in the historical record (for some future archivist to perfectly preserve!).

Some very famous looking films - such as The Godfather Trilogy - were deliberately photographed and printed to create a grainy image.

I agree with you that most recent films are photographed to reduce grain as much as possible, and this is the trend in recent film stocks such as the new Kodak Vision3.

But just because grain is generally out of fashion now doesn't mean that was always the case. It was impossible to produce film images that weren't grainy before the 1970s, and remember, it is the grainy structure of the crystals on the film that make recording an image possible in the first place.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: doccolinni on 2009-06-11 06:38:05
Assuming a total groove width of 50 x 10^-6m, the maximum movement of the cutter is physically bounded at about half that.

I don't know where you got that from.

(http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/1809/vinyldiscdetail2.jpg)
As obvious from this picture, where red lines represent one millimetre, the width of one groove is approximately one tenth of a millimetre, or 1*10-4 meters. Half of that is 0.5*10-4 meters which is 50*10-6 meters, so you were off by one order of magnitude.

Also, where did you get the information that the size of a PVC molecule is 100000 angstroms? That's 100000*10-10 or 1*10-5 meters which is only a fifth of the above value (5*10-5) - so PVC molecules should be visible in the very picture shown above if that was right! (No, those dots and specks you see in the picture are dust.) Perhaps you were talking about the potential length of a PVC molecule, but once we're aware of the PVC's molecular structure:

(http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/2016/pvc3dvdw.jpg)
it's obvious that it's only the width of the molecule that matters in this case.

Since this is the structure of a PVC molecule:

(http://www.3dchem.com/imagesofmolecules/pvc.gif)
being very pessimistic and ignoring the fact that this is only a 2D representation, one could estimate that the width of a PVC molecule is three times the covalent radius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covalent_radius) of a hydrogen atom, plus the covalent radius of a chlorine atom. Taking values from that table I linked to, the covalent radius of a hydrogen atom is 31 pm, which is 31*10-12 meters, and the covalent radius of a chlorine atom is 102 pm, which is 102*10-12. Therefore, our extremely rough and overshot estimation of the width of a PVC molecule would be 195*10-12 meters.

Since we've got that the movement of the needle is physically bounded at 50*10-6 meters, through simple division we get that the number of unique positions is approximately 256410. Now we take the logarithm to base two of that and we find that the resolution is actually equivalent to approximately 18 bits, certainly more than 16 bits. And that's with really overestimating the width of a PVC molecule!

So, sorry, but this argument of yours fails because your calculations and/or informations were erroneous.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ExUser on 2009-06-11 07:29:14
Perhaps, but your calculations assume that data at a single-molecular level can be accurately reproduced, which is quite the assumption. Furthermore, when properly dithered, CD has a perceptual noise floor equivalent to 20 bits (120dB at 6dB/bit), which still gives the edge to CD.

We're completely ignoring material degradation, dust, and many other potential flaws of the record here. Realize that measurements usually peg vinyl's noise floor at 80dB, which is 14-bit.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: doccolinni on 2009-06-11 08:36:48
Perhaps, but your calculations assume that data at a single-molecular level can be accurately reproduced, which is quite the assumption. Furthermore, when properly dithered, CD has a perceptual noise floor equivalent to 20 bits (120dB at 6dB/bit), which still gives the edge to CD.

We're completely ignoring material degradation, dust, and many other potential flaws of the record here. Realize that measurements usually peg vinyl's noise floor at 80dB, which is 14-bit.

I was not arguing over whether vinyl has better sound quality than audio CDs or trying to dispute the fact that CDs (can) have better sound quality than vinyl (in fact I think/know that CDs (can) sound better as I've listened to both, myself, on many occasions), I was merely pointing out that trying to prove it by going down to molecular level doesn't work because, theoretically, molecular structure of PVC obviously still gives the possibility of providing same or even better sound quality than CDs.

Now, the fact that reproducing from PVC with such precision is virtually impossible is a completely different matter. But it's important to point out that it's not because PVC's molecules are too big and/or the grooves are too thin.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: doccolinni on 2009-06-11 09:40:21
(It won't let me edit the previous post, so I have to double-post...)

And besides, the vinyl-fans do not claim that vinyl is superior because of greater depth of noise floor, but because of greater sampling frequency, or rather, lack of.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-06-11 12:22:02
being very pessimistic and ignoring the fact that this is only a 2D representation, one could estimate that the width of a PVC molecule is three times the covalent radius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covalent_radius) of a hydrogen atom, plus the covalent radius of a chlorine atom. Taking values from that table I linked to, the covalent radius of a hydrogen atom is 31 pm, which is 31*10-12 meters, and the covalent radius of a chlorine atom is 102 pm, which is 102*10-12. Therefore, our extremely rough and overshot estimation of the width of a PVC molecule would be 195*10-12 meters.

Since we've got that the movement of the needle is physically bounded at 50*10-6 meters, through simple division we get that the number of unique positions is approximately 256410. Now we take the logarithm to base two of that and we find that the resolution is actually equivalent to approximately 18 bits, certainly more than 16 bits. And that's with really overestimating the width of a PVC molecule!


This extimate of possible dynamic range would make some sense if we could line the vinyl molecules up and stack them like logs.  Then, we'd have to be able to trace them with something that was equally small. And, we'd have to protect all of this from dirt and dust in the atmosphere.

In reality, the observed dynamic range of vinyl playback ranges from about 40 to 60 dB, unweighted. 

I have some needle drops that were made by no less than Michael Fremer, Stereophile columnist and world class vinyl advocate, using his personal > $200,000 stereo system.

Actual broadband dynamic range is about 40 dB.  A 20-20 KHz filtering with 12 dB/octave slopes improves that to 45 dB. A weighted, it is about 70 dB.  Applying the ITU 468 weighting which is very severe, improves that to about 75 dB.

Vinyl also suffers from acute power bandwidth problems.  Recorded frequencies much higher than 8 KHz cannot be tracked at amplitudes that can be cut with low distortion. Then there is the groove echo, etc.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: doccolinni on 2009-06-11 12:44:44
This extimate of possible dynamic range would make some sense if we could line the vinyl molecules up and stack them like logs.  Then, we'd have to be able to trace them with something that was equally small. And, we'd have to protect all of this from dirt and dust in the atmosphere.

Yes, I know all that, and I agree with that and everything else in your post - I was just pointing out that the OP's calculations and conclusion were erroneous. He claimed that the huge size of PVC molecules is the reason why vinyl doesn't have as much dynamic range as CDs - that's simply wrong.

Like I've said in my previous post, the grooves and PVC molecules are big enough and small enough, respectively, that it is entirely physically and theoretically possible to get as much dynamic range from vinyl as from CDs. Practically and virtually, however, that's nearly impossible, because, like you've said yourself:

In fact, since the precision of a single molecule in both cutter and needle/pick-up system would obviously yield 18-bits of depth and most probably even more (as per my calculation and the largely overestimated width of PVC molecules therein), to achieve the same dynamic range as 16 bits of CDs you'd need to be able to remove/detect four PVC molecules. That's still a laughable idea, of course.

Since the dynamic range of vinyl is equivalent to 14 bits, it's easy to roughly estimate that the cutters actually remove no less than 218-14 = 24 = 16 PVC molecules at a time. That number is most certainly a bit greater, because I'm still talking about the oversized model of PVC molecule I talked about.

If only we could design cutters and needles that are 16 times more precise...
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: pdq on 2009-06-11 13:22:00
Actually the size of a vinyl molecule is completely pointless since the cutter was NOT cutting vinyl molecules. Vinyl does not enter the scene until it is molded to the master, and then the molecules can deform to almost perfectly match the surface of the master.

As has been pointed out, even this has no meaning since groove conformance to the audio waveform is completely overshadowed by other factors.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-06-11 13:56:02
Actually the size of a vinyl molecule is completely pointless since the cutter was NOT cutting vinyl molecules.


Right, masters are made out of lacquer or in a newer but little-used process, metal.

Quote
Vinyl does not enter the scene until it is molded to the master, and then the molecules can deform to almost perfectly match the surface of the master.


Evidence?  Not seriously doubting, just curious if the assertion is well-grounded or about right anyway.

Quote
As has been pointed out, even this has no meaning since groove conformance to the audio waveform is completely overshadowed by other factors.


When the molecules say 18 bits and reality is often worse than 8 bits, there are a lot of other signfiicant influences.  LOTS!
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: doccolinni on 2009-06-11 13:59:01
When the molecules say 18 bits and reality is often worse than 8 bits, there are a lot of other signfiicant influences.  LOTS!

My point exactly.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: pdq on 2009-06-11 15:25:05
Quote
Vinyl does not enter the scene until it is molded to the master, and then the molecules can deform to almost perfectly match the surface of the master.


Evidence?  Not seriously doubting, just curious if the assertion is well-grounded or about right anyway.

The bond lengths and bond angles are pretty much fixed, but the bond rotation is fairly unhindered. Think of it as a lot of long, skinny worms packed into a container and you will have a fairly accurate picture of the situation.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2Bdecided on 2009-06-11 16:04:24
  • you'd need a cutter that is able to remove one PVC molecule at a time (that is possible, but making a single vinyl record in that way would take decades!), and
  • you'd need a needle and a pick-up system which are able to detect as tiny bumps as a single molecule.

...and also (in this unreality) you'd need the gaps between the molecules to be always smaller than a single molecule, or the edge of the stylus being larger than a single molecule - otherwise the noise limit wouldn't be due to the size of the molecules equating to some kind of quantisation error, but to the molecule sized stylus bumping down into the holes between molecules.

If that makes any sense!

Cheers,
David.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 3amsleep on 2009-06-19 07:53:18
I just read the first page, but I want to remind you all that assuming we understand anything in the nano scale of reality is just a dream for now. Crazy, crazy, CRAZY things happens there (not really that crazy but chaotic/logical enough for us to be dumbfounded by it).

bottom line, you like how something sounds?, good for you, please enjoy it, 'cuz ultimately it really doesn't matter much how many samples or definition or anything like that is on that sound, the only thing that matter is if you like it, and how much you like it.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Soap on 2009-06-19 10:52:54
I just read the first page, but I want to remind you all that assuming we understand anything in the nano scale of reality is just a dream for now.

We're nowhere near that level.  We are firmly in the realm of understood physical properties.  Much of modern petrochemical mechanical science exists because we understand physical properties so well at this scale.

bottom line, you like how something sounds?, good for you, please enjoy it, 'cuz ultimately it really doesn't matter much how many samples or definition or anything like that is on that sound, the only thing that matter is if you like it, and how much you like it.

I don't believe any of the regulars here would dispute this on its face.  The point of threads like this, though, is not to be an attack on someone's subjective enjoyment, but rather to foster understanding of the what and why

It is one thing to say "I like the sound of vinyl records." it is another thing entirely to say "I like the sound of vinyl records because they more accurately reproduce the original performance."
The first line is an honest statement of opinion and can lead to interesting discussions and creates no misconceptions.  The second statement, though, makes demonstrably false assertions, the kind of false assertions being "attacked" in threads like this.  Calm, objective, threads such as this one help to decipher the reams of misinformation out there and allow people the tools needed to make their own decision, be that a decision based on objective measurements or a decision based on the aesthetics.
I see no incompatibilities between your opinion that "the only thing that matter is if your like it" and the discussion here.  BUT I think it is important to realize the value of opinions being informed opinions.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 3amsleep on 2009-06-20 02:35:13
I just read the first page, but I want to remind you all that assuming we understand anything in the nano scale of reality is just a dream for now.

We're nowhere near that level.  We are firmly in the realm of understood physical properties.  Much of modern petrochemical mechanical science exists because we understand physical properties so well at this scale.

bottom line, you like how something sounds?, good for you, please enjoy it, 'cuz ultimately it really doesn't matter much how many samples or definition or anything like that is on that sound, the only thing that matter is if you like it, and how much you like it.

I don't believe any of the regulars here would dispute this on its face.  The point of threads like this, though, is not to be an attack on someone's subjective enjoyment, but rather to foster understanding of the what and why

It is one thing to say "I like the sound of vinyl records." it is another thing entirely to say "I like the sound of vinyl records because they more accurately reproduce the original performance."
The first line is an honest statement of opinion and can lead to interesting discussions and creates no misconceptions.  The second statement, though, makes demonstrably false assertions, the kind of false assertions being "attacked" in threads like this.  Calm, objective, threads such as this one help to decipher the reams of misinformation out there and allow people the tools needed to make their own decision, be that a decision based on objective measurements or a decision based on the aesthetics.
I see no incompatibilities between your opinion that "the only thing that matter is if your like it" and the discussion here.  BUT I think it is important to realize the value of opinions being informed opinions.


I understand, maybe I was too impatient and just posted without much thought and elaboration on my opinion. Actually I completely agree with you in everything you said except for one thing; when I said we didn't understand anything in the nano scale of reality I was referring to the people in this forum, basically because all the math/physics I've seen on this thread and others are just ridiculous (I mean no offense to the ones that formulated them). The main problem is that a) they're addressing a physics problem in a non-scientifical, mathematical way and, b) they're using an inadequate, over simplified, generic physics approach (which doesn't work on this particular scale), when the conceptual problem calls for a quantum mechanics problematization.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Soap on 2009-06-20 13:19:44
b) they're using an inadequate, over simplified, generic physics approach (which doesn't work on this particular scale), when the conceptual problem calls for a quantum mechanics problematization.

Nope, as I first stated, we are not at the scale where quantum physics is needed to describe the interactions involved.  The typical definitions of quantum mechanics may start to talk about it being applied at the super-atomic level, the molecular level, but that's smaller molecules.  The vinyls are huge molecules with pretty well understood physical properties, long-chain hydrocarbons are pretty well understood, and the effects of something as large as a stylus are clearly in the realm of classical physics, not quantum.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ExUser on 2009-06-20 17:48:20
The equations are assuming Newtonian interactions at levels that begin to approach quantum interactions. The point that's being made is simple: even given absurdly high precision on the vinyl side, giving vinyl every benefit of the doubt we can find, it is still quite clearly inferior to CD at its purpose: accurately reproducing an audio signal.

Now, the unscientific, artistic sort is welcome to express preference for vinyl's inferior audio reproduction characteristics, citing preference for the distinctive loss patterns of vinyl as rationale. To anyone concerned with high-fidelity audio reproduction, this is absurdity. In almost every way that can be measured, vinyl is quantifiably inferior to CD. The only measurable way that vinyl actually exceeds CD is in frequency response, which is inaudible anyhow. Moreover, digital audio has arbitrary maximum sampling rates, and we are not restricted to CD's 44.1kHz.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: analog scott on 2009-07-26 22:06:54
The equations are assuming Newtonian interactions at levels that begin to approach quantum interactions. The point that's being made is simple: even given absurdly high precision on the vinyl side, giving vinyl every benefit of the doubt we can find, it is still quite clearly inferior to CD at its purpose: accurately reproducing an audio signal.

Now, the unscientific, artistic sort is welcome to express preference for vinyl's inferior audio reproduction characteristics, citing preference for the distinctive loss patterns of vinyl as rationale. To anyone concerned with high-fidelity audio reproduction, this is absurdity. In almost every way that can be measured, vinyl is quantifiably inferior to CD. The only measurable way that vinyl actually exceeds CD is in frequency response, which is inaudible anyhow. Moreover, digital audio has arbitrary maximum sampling rates, and we are not restricted to CD's 44.1kHz.


"Unscientific artistic sort?" One of my best friends is a molecular genetic biologist with a distinct preference for vinyl with most titles we have compared together. "Inferior?" For one to claim superiortity or inferiority one has to first determine what is being "measured" and by what reference it is being measured against and how it is being measured. One way it can be measured is by subjective perception. By that measure I found vinyl to be superior (not dramatically) in the one and only comparison I have been able to make in which the source used was of the highest quality, was taken from the same exact mic feed, was untampered with in the mastering and was in every way an attempt to produce the most transparent CD and LP of the original performance. not that any of that really matters much. The differences in mastering and vinyl playback equipment will almost always far exceed any inherent differences in the sound of the two media.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-07-27 14:27:35
The equations are assuming Newtonian interactions at levels that begin to approach quantum interactions. The point that's being made is simple: even given absurdly high precision on the vinyl side, giving vinyl every benefit of the doubt we can find, it is still quite clearly inferior to CD at its purpose: accurately reproducing an audio signal.

Now, the unscientific, artistic sort is welcome to express preference for vinyl's inferior audio reproduction characteristics, citing preference for the distinctive loss patterns of vinyl as rationale. To anyone concerned with high-fidelity audio reproduction, this is absurdity. In almost every way that can be measured, vinyl is quantifiably inferior to CD.




agreed.

Quote
The only measurable way that vinyl actually exceeds CD is in frequency response, which is inaudible anyhow.


Actually, in terms of useful, low distortion frequency response extension, the LP is very inferior to the CD. Above about 8 KHz the vinyl medium is inherently limited in terms of the amplitudes that can be recorded and played back with low distortion.

Quote
Moreover, digital audio has arbitrary maximum sampling rates, and we are not restricted to CD's 44.1kHz.


We also know by many reliable means that any frequency response extensions beyond CDs limitation of 22.05 KHz max and 20 KHz practical (your 44.1 KHz number is in error), simply has no detectable effects on people as a general rule.

Quote
"Unscientific artistic sort?" One of my best friends is a molecular genetic biologist with a distinct preference for vinyl with most titles we have compared together.


It is well known that many people who are even highly sucessful in certain areas of science but stumble and fall when they go outside of their area of expertise. Linus Pauling the physicist did well. His ideas about human nutritiion were straignt out of the world of pulp health food ragazines.

Quote
"Inferior?"


Time to go back and read what the man said:

"...it (the LP)  is still quite clearly inferior to CD at its purpose: accurately reproducing an audio signal."

We're obviously talking about accuracy in a scientific sense. Do the waves that come out of a LP resemble the waves that go into it, more or less than the CD?  That has been long known with extreme accuracy and reliability. In short: CD is vastly superior to the LP. Most people did not applaud and exploit the introduction of the CD for no reason or because they were mislead. The evidence of their ears was more than enough to make them abandon the LP with a big smile on their face. There was this tiny noisy minority of misfits, though.

Quote
For one to claim superiortity or inferiority one has to first determine what is being "measured" and by what reference it is being measured against and how it is being measured.


The answer to that quesiton is well known and generally agreed upon. When we scientifically compare the CD format to the LP format, the reference in each case is the audio signal that was recorded on the media, exclusive of any artistic or production processing that preceeded the actual coding of an audio signal on the medium.  What we compare those to is the audio wave that we can obtain by the best means that are available to the general public.

Quote
One way it can be measured is by subjective perception.


Been there, done that. Again, there is a scientific way to do that. You match the levels, you synchronize the playback, and you control listener bias. I'm quite sure that you have not done this in your evaluations. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Quote
By that measure I found vinyl to be superior (not dramatically) in the one and only comparison I have been able to make in which the source used was of the highest quality, was taken from the same exact mic feed, was untampered with in the mastering nd was in every way an attempt to produce the most transparent CD and LP of the original performance.


The comparison you describe can't be done well, because of the necessary delays between cutting a LP and playing  a mass-produced version of it back. It takes the better part of a day. By the time you get to hear the LP, you pretty well completely forgot the subtle details of what the origional live performance sounded like.

Furthermore, you may have done this comparison once or a few times in your life, but there's people around here like me who have done a far better and more general and relevant comparison uncountable numbers of times.

I have often, and for hours and hours sat in my choice of seats in a good performance hall, and been able to compare a direct feed from a microphone or microphone array to the actual live sound. They always sound signficiantly different.

I have also had the opportunity to in essence compare the sound being recorded on a CD to the sound that went into the CD production process. Finding an reliable and signficant audible difference is impossible.

If you understand how LPs are made, and their inherent limitations, you would simply know better than to compare their sonic accuracy to any number of modern forms of music reproduction, including a high-bitrate MP3.

Quote
not that any of that really matters much. The differences in mastering and vinyl playback equipment will almost always far exceed any inherent differences in the sound of the two media.


The differences in mastering and biases in the comparisons that people usually do partially explain why a tiny, noisy minority can actually stand to  and even say they prefer to listen to LPs, except under duress.

However, the best general explanation is personal bias. Take  the romance and interpersonal interactions away, and vinyl is just not all that attractive to almost everybody. Something about the audible distoriton and noise, I think.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: pdq on 2009-07-27 15:47:29
It is well known that many people who are even highly sucessful in certain areas of science but stumble and fall when they go outside of their area of expertise. Linus Pauling the physicist did well. His ideas about human nutritiion were straignt out of the world of pulp health food ragazines.

As a chemist myself I think of Linus Pauling as primarily a chemist rather than a physicist. His book "The Nature of the Chemical Bond" (1939) is considered one of the most significant scientific publications of the twentieth century.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-07-27 16:56:03
It is well known that many people who are even highly sucessful in certain areas of science but stumble and fall when they go outside of their area of expertise. Linus Pauling the physicist did well. His ideas about human nutritiion were straignt out of the world of pulp health food ragazines.

As a chemist myself I think of Linus Pauling as primarily a chemist rather than a physicist. His book "The Nature of the Chemical Bond" (1939) is considered one of the most significant scientific publications of the twentieth century.


A little checking shows that your correction is consistent with Pauling's official biographies. Thanks for the correction. My impressions were based on familiarity with his work on crystal structure.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Axon on 2009-07-27 17:22:28
It's worth pointing out that you can be an artsy type, and a logically thinking scientist, and prefer vinyl without any contradictions - as long as you don't try to justify your beliefs based on falsehoods. But this excludes any technical or objective points from consideration, because they all favor CD. (So you should not expect to be able to convince anybody else!)
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: analog scott on 2009-07-27 18:28:06
Quote
It is well known that many people who are even highly sucessful in certain areas of science but stumble and fall when they go outside of their area of expertise. Linus Pauling the physicist did well. His ideas about human nutritiion were straignt out of the world of pulp health food ragazines.

A preference is merely a preference. It is neither a failure nor a success. I simply was citing an example that ran contrary to the assertion that a preference for vinyl would come from someone with an non-scientific mind. Clearly this is both untrue and misleading. True aesthetic preferences are for the most part indepenedent of one's scientific mindedness.

Quote
Time to go back and read what the man said:

"...it (the LP)  is still quite clearly inferior to CD at its purpose: accurately reproducing an audio signal."

We're obviously talking about accuracy in a scientific sense.

OK. I mistakenly thought this would be in consideration of human perception. Given the very purpose of audio in the first place.

Quote
Been there, done that. Again, there is a scientific way to do that. You match the levels, you synchronize the playback, and you control listener bias. I'm quite sure that you have not done this in your evaluations. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I certainly have done bias contolled comparisons. snychronization is not needed element for bias controlled listener preference tests. One need look no further than the tests done by Floyd Toole and Sean Olive on speaker preferences to see that. Level matching is a tricky thing when things sound different. How does one match levels when there is different frequency responses, different levels of noise and different levels of compression?

Quote
The comparison you describe can't be done well, because of the necessary delays between cutting a LP and playing  a mass-produced version of it back. It takes the better part of a day. By the time you get to hear the LP, you pretty well completely forgot the subtle details of what the origional live performance sounded like.

That is irrelevant. All one needs for the preference comparison is the CD, The LP, the equipment to play it on (a SOTA TT rig is needed) and some help from another individual to make the comparisons blind. doesn't matter how old the recording is.

Quote
Furthermore, you may have done this comparison once or a few times in your life, but there's people around here like me who have done a far better and more general and relevant comparison uncountable numbers of times.

Do tell us then what LP and CD did you use that was taken from the same mic feed with no signal manipulation in the mastering of either the CD or LP that was a SOTA recording of live acoustic music? this is not a common comodity. You say you have done it more times than you can count. there are fewer such records and CDs in existance that meet this criteria than I can count so you must have used the same CDs and LPs for many of these countless comparisons. Do tell us the titles at least. Then tell us what you did to level match them.

Quote
I have often, and for hours and hours sat in my choice of seats in a good performance hall, and been able to compare a direct feed from a microphone or microphone array to the actual live sound. They always sound signficiantly different.

That is nice. It's completely irrelevant to any preference comparisons between LPs and CDs of any given recording though.

Quote
The differences in mastering and biases in the comparisons that people usually do partially explain why a tiny, noisy minority can actually stand to  and even say they prefer to listen to LPs, except under duress.

However, the best general explanation is personal bias. Take  the romance and interpersonal interactions away, and vinyl is just not all that attractive to almost everybody. Something about the audible distoriton and noise, I think.

I prefer not to speculate but do actual comaprisons under blind conditions. The differences are usually quite substantial when we allow for variations in mastering. They far exceed the differences I heard in my comparison of the LP and CD that were both mastered with no signal manipulation. That vinyl wins out a majority of the time in those comparisons suggests that we simply have a history of superior mastering with LPs that is largely ignored by those who are arguing CD superiority on a technical basis. That would be a classic case of bias effects biting the audiophile in the rear. IMO if you are arguing about the two media you have taken your eye off the ball.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: analog scott on 2009-07-27 19:06:25
It's worth pointing out that you can be an artsy type, and a logically thinking scientist, and prefer vinyl without any contradictions - as long as you don't try to justify your beliefs based on falsehoods. But this excludes any technical or objective points from consideration, because they all favor CD. (So you should not expect to be able to convince anybody else!)


Preferences need no "justification." The very idea that preferences need justification IMO points to a bias that is not connected to pure aesthetic values of sound quality. The auidible differences are real and therefore have a technical objective explanation. So it seems like there will ultimately be a technical reason for an unbiased preference for LPs over CDs when such a preference exists. So such points can not be excluded from consideration when discussing such a preference.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ExUser on 2009-07-27 19:15:16
A preference is merely a preference. It is neither a failure nor a success. I simply was citing an example that ran contrary to the assertion that a preference for vinyl would come from someone with an non-scientific mind. Clearly this is both untrue and misleading. True aesthetic preferences are for the most part indepenedent of one's scientific mindedness.
But you see, this is not merely an aesthetic preference. This is an aesthetic preference that reflects worldview. It is possible to save vinyl's sound to a CD, but it is not always possible to save CD's sound to vinyl. The possibilities are greater with CD, while not excluding the possibility of sound that is like vinyl's. CD's possible sound is a proper super set of vinyl's possible sound.

 
OK. I mistakenly thought this would be in consideration of human perception. Given the very purpose of audio in the first place.
Yes, and human perception has its limits. If we are merely considering human perception, MP3 is sufficient. MP3 is superior to vinyl in precisely the same ways that CD is, considering human perception. If one's worldview values high-fidelity, that is, reproducing the sound created by the artist as precisely as possible, it becomes quickly apparent that vinyl fails at that goal.

I certainly have done bias contolled comparisons. snychronization is not needed element for bias controlled listener preference tests. One need look no further than the tests done by Floyd Toole and Sean Olive on speaker preferences to see that. Level matching is a tricky thing when things sound different. How does one match levels when there is different frequency responses, different levels of noise and different levels of compression?
These tests are of limited usefulness. The analogy to speakers is also somewhat flawed. The signal characteristics of speakers are quite difficult to measure, especially compared to the signal characteristics of recording media. Recording media can be scientifically analyzed using techniques employed by electrical engineers since before digital formats existed. These techniques are mathematical and objective.

That is nice. It's completely irrelevant to any preference comparisons between LPs and CDs of any given recording though.
Quote
It's worth pointing out that you can be an artsy type, and a logically thinking scientist, and  prefer vinyl without any contradictions - as long as you don't try to  justify your beliefs based on falsehoods. But this excludes any  technical or objective points from consideration, because they all favor CD. (So you should not expect to be able to convince anybody else!)
You're welcome to prefer the distorted, low-fidelity sound of vinyl, but be aware of what I mentioned at the start: the vinyl sound is reproducible by CD and not vice-versa.

IMO if you are arguing about the two media you have taken your eye off the ball.
Funny, what exactly are you doing in this thread?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: saratoga on 2009-07-27 19:49:00
Preferences need no "justification."


As long as you're not interesting in communicating them to others, this is correct.  Of course, once you say "I prefer X" the natural follow up question is "Why do you prefer X" and then you run into trouble

If you have preferences that you know don't make sense, best not to tell other people about them, or they'll think you're a bit nutty. 

Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-07-27 20:10:55
I mistakenly thought this would be in consideration of human perception. Given the very purpose of audio in the first place.


Human perception is a area that science studies.

Quote
Quote
Been there, done that. Again, there is a scientific way to do that. You match the levels, you synchronize the playback, and you control listener bias. I'm quite sure that you have not done this in your evaluations. Please correct me if I'm wrong.


I certainly have done bias contolled comparisons. synchronization is not needed element for bias controlled listener preference tests.


You're showing your lack of practical experience. If one fails to properly synchronize the playback, one can easily identify the unknowns even if they are otherwise identical. As soon as the unknowns can be reliably identified by means other than sound quality, the test is no longer blind.

Quote
Level matching is a tricky thing when things sound different. How does one match levels when there is different frequency responses, different levels of noise and different levels of compression?


If the alternatives are so different that one sounds clearly different from the reference (generally true of LP) and the other doesn't (generally true of the CD), then this isn't a test of preferences related to sound quality but rather a fancy questionaire about the listener's pre-existing biases.

If you want to agree with me that people who think that vinyl sounds better don't base their prreferences on sound quality but rather base their stated preferences on their pre-existing biases, be my guest. That's basically my current best analysis of the situation.


Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ExUser on 2009-07-27 21:09:01
Of course, once you say "I prefer X" the natural follow up question is "Why do you prefer X" and then you run into trouble
"It sounds better to me" is a legitimate response here, and would tend to preclude debate about the technical qualities of the formats.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-07-27 21:41:18
Of course, once you say "I prefer X" the natural follow up question is "Why do you prefer X" and then you run into trouble
"It sounds better to me" is a legitimate response here, and would tend to preclude debate about the technical qualities of the formats.


This is of course all old news.  In reallity, the vinyl preferrers would often then launch into whatever *revealed truth about the inherent flaws of digital* they had picked up last, such as "the problem of the empty spaces between samples making it impossible for digital recordings to have a proper soundstage", or some such.

We just got a small replay of this weirdness today in another thread, where the poor misinformed OP seems to think no 16 bit music player could ever do right by his precious classical recordings. He wanted his recordings to sound more like 24 bit or vinyl than 16 bits could ever do. No, I didn't make this up!
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: MichaelW on 2009-07-28 00:24:09
E. O. Wilson, the evolutionary biologist, revived a useful word: "consilience." It recognizes the fact of emergent properties, but asks that the two levels of explanation should kind of fit at the boundary; so, chemistry can't be reduced to physics, but chemistry ought to be compatible with the findings of physics, a further stage, not a contradiction.

I find this idea really useful when thinking about the interface between value judgments (aesthetic or otherwise) and scientific knowledge. So, if someone says they prefer vinyl, that's cool. You might ask them "Why?" and they might say that analogue has better reproduction of high frequencies than digital; you might then agree to test this proposition, and discover that in fact the vinyl that's being listened to has worse HF reproduction. This would NOT invalidate the preference, but it would invalidate the stated reason for the preference. You might end up discovering it's album art on an LP cover and the vintage feel of the medium of original release. Or there might be no detectable reason. But the preference would still be "valid," though it might not survive this exploration.

It would be worth doing this if you either wished other people to adopt your preference, or if you wanted to explore the reasons for your preference (which is a good way of understanding more about aesthetics).

The virtue of the word "consilience" in this sort of case is that it avoids the impression of an inevitable clash between the scientific and the aesthetic/preference, whilst showing how someone might coherently operate in two domains.

BTW, Wilson's book _Consilience_ is very good, I think, though I'm troubled that I find it weakest in the area I know most about, namely the Arts. That does so often tend to be the way.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2009-07-28 05:18:00
I certainly have done bias contolled comparisons. snychronization is not needed element for bias controlled listener preference tests. One need look no further than the tests done by Floyd Toole and Sean Olive on speaker preferences to see that. Level matching is a tricky thing when things sound different. How does one match levels when there is different frequency responses, different levels of noise and different levels of compression?
These tests are of limited usefulness. The analogy to speakers is also somewhat flawed. The signal characteristics of speakers are quite difficult to measure, especially compared to the signal characteristics of recording media. Recording media can be scientifically analyzed using techniques employed by electrical engineers since before digital formats existed. These techniques are mathematical and objective.



Synching is recommended when comparing two sound files or two media/file playback devices; not necessary for comparing two loudspeakers or other parts of the playback chain where the sound files and the playback devices are the same for A and B.

Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2009-07-28 05:20:27
Of course, once you say "I prefer X" the natural follow up question is "Why do you prefer X" and then you run into trouble
"It sounds better to me" is a legitimate response here, and would tend to preclude debate about the technical qualities of the formats.



I think it could trigger a TOS#8 violation notice, actually, since in that bare-bones form it's arguably a statement concerning subjective sound quality:

8. All members that put forth a statement concerning subjective sound quality, must -- to the best of their ability -- provide objective support for their claims. Acceptable means of support are double blind listening tests (ABX or ABC/HR) demonstrating that the member can discern a difference perceptually, together with a test sample to allow others to reproduce their findings. Graphs, non-blind listening tests, waveform difference comparisons, and so on, are not acceptable means of providing support.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ExUser on 2009-07-28 05:22:50
Excellent point.

My explanation was meant to cover the general case, not the Hydrogenaudio special case.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: analog scott on 2009-07-28 06:53:18
If we are merely considering human perception, MP3 is sufficient. MP3 is superior to vinyl in precisely the same ways that CD is, considering human perception. If one's worldview values high-fidelity, that is, reproducing the sound created by the artist as precisely as possible, it becomes quickly apparent that vinyl fails at that goal.


"*Reproducing* the sound created by the artist?" If we are talking about live acoustic music then vinyl, MP3, CD,SACD, DVD-A all fail. Stereo recording and playback fails, even multi-channel fails. You can not begin to capture the original soundfield in real time. stereo recording and playback never has been an attempt to reproduce anything. It has always been about creating an aural illusion.

Quote
These tests are of limited usefulness. The analogy to speakers is also somewhat flawed.



It is not an analogy.

Preferences need no "justification."


As long as you're not interesting in communicating them to others, this is correct.  Of course, once you say "I prefer X" the natural follow up question is "Why do you prefer X" and then you run into trouble

If you have preferences that you know don't make sense, best not to tell other people about them, or they'll think you're a bit nutty.



How does one get into trouble? I can give you an answer in every case none of which get me into any trouble. The answers in every case are just going to be descriptions of the differences in what I heard. Now how do I run into trouble?


How do such preferences not makes sense?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: analog scott on 2009-07-28 07:30:21
You're showing your lack of practical experience. If one fails to properly synchronize the playback, one can easily identify the unknowns even if they are otherwise identical. As soon as the unknowns can be reliably identified by means other than sound quality, the test is no longer blind.



Not an issue if one simply repeats the program material from the begining each time.

If the alternatives are so different that one sounds clearly different from the reference (generally true of LP) and the other doesn't (generally true of the CD), then this isn't a test of preferences related to sound quality but rather a fancy questionaire about the listener's pre-existing biases.



The references? What reference are you using when you compare commercial CDs to their LP counterparts? I recently did a group comparison of LPs (various masterings) of John Coltrane's Love Supreme. What should I have used as a reference? Coltrane apparently wasn't available.

If you want to agree with me that people who think that vinyl sounds better don't base their prreferences on sound quality but rather base their stated preferences on their pre-existing biases, be my guest. That's basically my current best analysis of the situation.



can you offer any sort of meaningful account of actual blind comparisons that show this is actually based on the sound of various LPs and CDs at their best or is it safe to say that this is merely a reflection of your biases? my bias controlled comparisons tell a different story about the actual sound quality of various LPs and CDs of many different titles. As I stated before, it is quite obvious that the majority of the differences are mastring related as well as hardware related and that the intrinsic sound of each medium is a minor factor in most comparisons. So it should be no surprise that the results vary quite widely from title to title.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ExUser on 2009-07-28 07:34:53
"*Reproducing* the sound created by the artist?" If we are talking about live acoustic music then vinyl, MP3, CD,SACD, DVD-A all fail. Stereo recording and playback fails, even multi-channel fails. You can not begin to capture the original soundfield in real time. stereo recording and playback never has been an attempt to reproduce anything. It has always been about creating an aural illusion.
You're missing the point. At the end of the day, the artist (along with some associated personnel) is creating some recording. CD and digital reproduce that recording more quantifiably more accurately than vinyl can.

As for the matter of speakers, if you were not drawing a parallel, what was the point of that anecdote? The parallel breaks just as the analogy would, and the anecdote is really rather impotent if it is neither parallel nor analogy.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: analog scott on 2009-07-28 08:00:22
You're missing the point. At the end of the day, the artist (along with some associated personnel) is creating some recording. CD and digital reproduce that recording more quantifiably more accurately than vinyl can.


Why is that the point? Why is the goal to reproduce a stored intermediate signal (a recording) with a particular greater quantifiable accuracy the point?

As for the matter of speakers, if you were not drawing a parallel, what was the point of that anecdote? The parallel breaks just as the analogy would, and the anecdote is really rather impotent if it is neither parallel nor analogy.


A Parallel yes. an analogy no. Why does the parallel "break?" what is so unique about speakers that one can make preference comparisons without time syncing but one can not do the same when comparing CDs to LPs for the same purpose?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: greynol on 2009-07-28 08:05:27
The question is not about mastering, it is about format.

To make it clear allow me to repeat Canar's point:  one can easily capture the vinyl experience on CD but you can't go in the opposite direction.  It really doesn't get any simpler than that.

Apples and oranges side discussion regarding mastering is going to find its way into the Recycle Bin.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: analog scott on 2009-07-28 10:23:03
The question is not about mastering, it is about format.

To make it clear allow me to repeat Canar's point:  one can easily capture the vinyl experience on CD but you can't go in the opposite direction.  It really doesn't get any simpler than that.

Apples and oranges side discussion regarding mastering is going to find its way into the Recycle Bin.



I will keep that point in mind should I be considering a choice between copying CDs on vinyl or copying vinyl on CD. Given that I don't have a cutting lathe it really isn't an issue for me at this point. But the thing that spawned this current exhange was the assertion that one would likely be more artsy (or flakey) and less "scientific" (or smart or rational) to have a preference for vinyl. That is really a bunch of balony. The fact is one can have a preference for vinyl based on sound alone regardless of their scientific prowess. But one can't ignore that such a preference will likely involve things like mastering and hardware more than the intrinsic sound of either medium. How many actual CDs and LPs of the same title that you know of were mastered exactly the same way? But heck, if you guys want to discuss these subjects in a vaccuum that ignores the most obvious real world point of audio (playing actual commercial recordings) go right ahead. But when you chose to exlude these things from the discussion and only allow for an academic discussion on the merits of the two media on paper only, you chose to make the discussion irrelevant to the persuit of better sound by audiophiles. How often is it that there are no differences in mastering when one makes a comparison between an LP and a CD of the same title? How often is it that one makes such a comparison using Lp playback equipment that isn't something less than state of the art? How can you have a meaningful discussion about the merits of either media when we have no evidence that these factors are not an intrinsic part of every opinion expressed so far on this thread? Do you understand the significance of this point? Who among you who have been so critical of the sonic merits of LPs can honestly say thay have formed their opinions on the intrnsic sonic merits of the two media based on actual bias controlled comparisons using state of the art hardware and Lps and CDs of the same material that was designed to preclude any and all differences other than the two media? Considering the forum's policy on insisting on bias controlled tests to support opinions it does seem you are allowing for a lot of opinions to fly here without the requisit support. If the CD medium is so superior that not only can we say that it will clobber LPs played back on SOTA equipment under blind conditions but it will do so by such a margin that we can really ignore real world mastering differences that permiate the market, where are the bias controlled  tests to support such a strong belief? Like I said before, the blind comparisons I actually did with an actual recording that was deliberately designed to isolate the two media themselves by using no signal proccessing in the mastering wrought a preference for vinyl but it did not wrought a such a dramatic difference that one can  ignore factors like mastering and hardware in the real world. so given these real world factors it is nothing short of pure prejudice to reduce people to artsy (flakey) or scientific (smart and rational) based on their personal preferences between the two media.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-07-28 12:14:04
You're showing your lack of practical experience. If one fails to properly synchronize the playback, one can easily identify the unknowns even if they are otherwise identical. As soon as the unknowns can be reliably identified by means other than sound quality, the test is no longer blind.


Not an issue if one simply repeats the program material from the begining each time.


Again, you are showing your lack of experience. If you repeat the program material from the begining each time the listener's sensitvity to small details is totally compromised by the delay time between hearing the identical same music.

If the alternatives are so different that one sounds clearly different from the reference (generally true of LP) and the other doesn't (generally true of the CD), then this isn't a test of preferences related to sound quality but rather a fancy questionaire about the listener's pre-existing biases.


The references?


Yes, references, the one thing that is absent from most alleged comparisons of LP and vinyl.  No references, no test.

Quote
What reference are you using when you compare commercial CDs to their LP counterparts? I recently did a group comparison of LPs (various masterings) of John Coltrane's Love Supreme. What should I have used as a reference? Coltrane apparently wasn't available.


Then you weren't doing tests.

Given what you have revealed so far Scott, it appears that what you were actually doing was a fancy survey of people's pre-existing biases.

Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-07-28 12:26:04
But the thing that spawned this current exhange was the assertion that one would likely be more artsy (or flakey) and less "scientific" (or smart or rational) to have a preference for vinyl.


It probably helps to take a step back. This is really about music and media. Supposedly, we listen to music beause we like music. Alternatively, one might like a particular medium, less so than want to enjoy the music.

If your primary interest is music, then of course you want to  listen to the most accurate form of the music which is of course live music. Since that is often difficult or impossible, us music lovers fall back on listening to music via some medium.

Comparing and contrasting the LP and CD mediums, let us first agree that both mediums force us to resort to the process of micing and mixing, which in and of itself dramatically changes the sound of the music. This problem is common to both the LP and the CD, and sequel mediums, which are now common. Most newer mediums behave more like the CD than the LP as typically used.

Now, actualy comparing just the 2 mediums, we should agree that the CD medium can deliver a near-perfect or functionally perfect presentation of whatever we miced and mixed. The LP medium is highly sonically instrusive, and that is not an opinion, it is a scientifically provable fact.

Therefore, if your interest is primarily listening to music, and not primarily listening to the sonic and experiencing the other non-sonic properties of the medium, then the CD is the logical, scientific choice.


Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2Bdecided on 2009-07-28 12:38:39
analog scott,

We've had this argument tens of times before on HA.

1. No one has proven that the sound of an LP can't be faithfully reproduced on a CD. Lots of people copy LPs onto CDs. They seem happy with the process. No one seems to be able to ABX a difference. If you can, step right up.

2. Mastering differences, noise, and distortion can all cause a commercial LP to sound different from a commercial CD. Sometimes the commercial LP will sound better. My stereo LP of A Hard Day's Night sounds far better than my mono CD


You might think the solution to point 2 is to spend a lot of money on a decent turntable and buy vinyl for those releases where vinyl sounds better.

Some people would rather get the "superior" vinyl copied to CD or digital file by someone else, and use that.

Unless you can disprove point 1, using a digital copy of the "superior" vinyl is rational, gives equivalent sound quality, and is far cheaper - not to mention more convenient, as the digital file won't scratch or wear out!

Cheers,
David.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: andy o on 2009-07-28 13:40:20

To make it clear allow me to repeat Canar's point:  one can easily capture the vinyl experience on CD but you can't go in the opposite direction.  It really doesn't get any simpler than that.



I will keep that point in mind should I be considering a choice between copying CDs on vinyl or copying vinyl on CD. Given that I don't have a cutting lathe it really isn't an issue for me at this point. But the thing that spawned this current exhange was the assertion that one would likely be more artsy (or flakey) and less "scientific" (or smart or rational) to have a preference for vinyl. That is really a bunch of balony.

Once you're willing to accept what Canar and greynol said, and it seems you do, then the choice for vinyl becomes either a romantic one or a practical one. I don't think you can argue much for practicality of vinyl over CD, so you're stuck with romantic. Which is fine, but it's not a rational nor scientific choice.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Nick.C on 2009-07-28 13:54:03
The preference for vinyl could be likened to a smoker who prefers to roll their own - filters and all. In a similar way to recently non-smokers who don't know what to do with their hands, the 25 minute cycle of LP side change may be part of the "habit".
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: analog scott on 2009-07-28 16:09:04
Again, you are showing your lack of experience. If you repeat the program material from the begining each time the listener's sensitvity to small details is totally compromised by the delay time between hearing the identical same music.


That would be a problem if we were looking for subtle differences near the threshold of human hearing. since these are tests for preferences all we need are consistant results to know that the alleged loss of sensitivity is not an issue.

Yes, references, the one thing that is absent from most alleged comparisons of LP and vinyl.  No references, no test.


I was asking you what you would suggest one use as a reference when comparing LPs and CDs of the same title given that you claim to have done countless such tests. now you claim that they were absent from most alleged tests and you offer no answer for yourself on the question of what references you used.  It would seem that by your own defintions you did not do actual tests. I would love to see some consistancy from your answers about *your* alleged tests if I am to believe they ever really happened. Let me remind you that you claim to have done countelss such tests. I wonder how any of them could have met your new defintion of a test? What was your references for yourt countless tests and what were your sources for CDs and LPs? As for your assertion that one need a reference in a preference test for it to be a test that is just nonsense. The preference is based on personal aesthetic values. They are subjective and need not have a reference. The choice of any reference would in and of itself be a subjective choice. What reference do they use in blind taste comparisons for wine? Are they no longer "tests" because they lack any reference?



"What reference are you using when you compare commercial CDs to their LP counterparts? I recently did a group comparison of LPs (various masterings) of John Coltrane's Love Supreme. What should I have used as a reference? Coltrane apparently wasn't available."

Then you weren't doing tests.



Sure I was. Are you seriously now suggesting that one can't do bias contolled tests to form a preference based on sound alone without an arbitrary reference? That is absurd.

Given what you have revealed so far Scott, it appears that what you were actually doing was a fancy survey of people's pre-existing biases.



Given what you have said it seems you are desperate to come up with some reason or another to dismiss my bias controlled comparisons no matter how absurb the reason may be. Now that is obviously a bias driven agenda. I wonder if anyone on this thread would be making any of the arguments they are making if I had reported consistant preferences for CD?
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: analog scott on 2009-07-28 16:24:22
But the thing that spawned this current exhange was the assertion that one would likely be more artsy (or flakey) and less "scientific" (or smart or rational) to have a preference for vinyl.


It probably helps to take a step back. This is really about music and media. Supposedly, we listen to music beause we like music. Alternatively, one might like a particular medium, less so than want to enjoy the music.

If your primary interest is music, then of course you want to  listen to the most accurate form of the music which is of course live music. Since that is often difficult or impossible, us music lovers fall back on listening to music via some medium.

Comparing and contrasting the LP and CD mediums, let us first agree that both mediums force us to resort to the process of micing and mixing, which in and of itself dramatically changes the sound of the music. This problem is common to both the LP and the CD, and sequel mediums, which are now common. Most newer mediums behave more like the CD than the LP as typically used.

Now, actualy comparing just the 2 mediums, we should agree that the CD medium can deliver a near-perfect or functionally perfect presentation of whatever we miced and mixed. The LP medium is highly sonically instrusive, and that is not an opinion, it is a scientifically provable fact.

Therefore, if your interest is primarily listening to music, and not primarily listening to the sonic and experiencing the other non-sonic properties of the medium, then the CD is the logical, scientific choice.



Where is the data in the form of bias controlled listening tests to support this hypothesis? this would require that we have the original musicians in the original venue as a reference. Then we would have to be choose a listening position in the concert hall as our reference position given the fact that the sound changes with any changes in listener position. then we have to find the best possible microphone/recording/playback/listening room combination that creates the best illusion of that sound from that one listener position. THEN we can take that recording, master it to CD and LP and THEN we can do a bias controlled comparison using the live music as a reference. Not terribly practical is it? Never been done quite like that has it? The problem with your hypothesis is that it assumes that transparency in every step of the process of recording and playing back music is going to lead to a better result. this might be true if the process were designed to be a literal reconstruction of the original and if every other link in the chain were perfect. But the assumption fails to hold up in the real world where we have a recording and playback system that is designed to create an aural illusion and there are many undisputed less than perfect links in the chain that create inherent problems in that aural illusion. given these obvious problems one can not make any of the assumptions you make and must actually do the hard work and conduct the actual listening tests.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: analog scott on 2009-07-28 16:33:19
analog scott,

We've had this argument tens of times before on HA.

1. No one has proven that the sound of an LP can't be faithfully reproduced on a CD. Lots of people copy LPs onto CDs. They seem happy with the process. No one seems to be able to ABX a difference. If you can, step right up.

2. Mastering differences, noise, and distortion can all cause a commercial LP to sound different from a commercial CD. Sometimes the commercial LP will sound better. My stereo LP of A Hard Day's Night sounds far better than my mono CD


You might think the solution to point 2 is to spend a lot of money on a decent turntable and buy vinyl for those releases where vinyl sounds better.

Some people would rather get the "superior" vinyl copied to CD or digital file by someone else, and use that.

Unless you can disprove point 1, using a digital copy of the "superior" vinyl is rational, gives equivalent sound quality, and is far cheaper - not to mention more convenient, as the digital file won't scratch or wear out!

Cheers,
David.



Well Jee wiz excuse me for not wanting to steel the hard work done by small labels that go the extra mile in the mastering. I'll give you credit though you have almost reluctantly acknowledged that in some cases one can get better sound from a commercial LP than it's commercial CD counterpart. Even baby steps are steps. But do tell me how does one smuggle that superior sound through a friend if one doesn't have the friend with that superior LP? If everyone did as you suggest there would be no one with superior LPs to steal from. It amazes me just how warped some of the rationalizations used against LPs can become here.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: ExUser on 2009-07-28 16:43:17
If you can't comprehend the distinction between format and mastering, there is no point in continuing involving you in this discussion. This discussion is not about mastering. Mastering techniques for vinyl will also work for CD. If the quality of the CD masters is inferior to the quality of the vinyl masters, that does not make CD inferior as a format, it makes the CD masters inferior.

You are also consistently involving live sound in this discussion. When discussing recorded music, you're dealing with an audio signal. Capturing the "live experience" is quite beyond the scope of the current discussion and is blatantly off-topic.

Consider yourself warned. Further comments pulling the discussion off-topic towards either live music or mastering differences will be split off to some separate thread. This topic compares and discusses the details of the signal reproduction abilities of vinyl and CD, though that's probably putting too fine a point on it.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: krabapple on 2009-07-28 16:47:34
Why is that the point? Why is the goal to reproduce a stored intermediate signal (a recording) with a particular greater quantifiable accuracy the point?


Because that is the best we can hope to do predictably.  The gear we have at home only 'sees' the recorded signal, not the original event.  Attempts to recreate the original event by changing the recorded signal at playback before output are always going to be guesses, and cannot possibly cover every circumstance of original event.  An setup that happens to impart an stunning illusion of reality to , say, a recording of an organ recital in a church cannot be guaranteed to do the same job for a rock show recorded in a dive bar or a string quartet in a small salon-like room or a wholly artificial mix from electric instruments sent directly to the mixing board.

For better or worse, the recorded signal  -- what the record/mix/mastering engineers heard in their monitors -- *is* the event to be reproduced faithfully, from the perspective of the 'playback gear'.  Everything else is speculation.  The better those engineers do at their job of capturing the 'reality', the better the chance that we can recreate it at home.

Quote
As for the matter of speakers, if you were not drawing a parallel, what was the point of that anecdote? The parallel breaks just as the analogy would, and the anecdote is really rather impotent if it is neither parallel nor analogy.


A Parallel yes. an analogy no. Why does the parallel "break?" what is so unique about speakers that one can make preference comparisons without time syncing but one can not do the same when comparing CDs to LPs for the same purpose?



Your analogy is not apt, because as I explained, loudspeakers, and amps, and cables, are not source devices playing media.  'Synching' has no meaning when you are using the same source device to compare some downstream component...there is nothing to 'synch'. You play the music on a single CDP or DVDP or turntable or hard disc or Edison cylinder or whatever,  and switch between downstream components A and B.  Whereas if you are comparing two CDPs, DVDPs,  etc you necessarily have two sources, and two discs/sound files/wax cylinders, so synching becomes an issue if you wish to avoid identification of a player/format merely by the timing difference between A and B.

Furthermore for loudspeakers the blind tests are typically of *preference*, not A/B/X-type difference tests.  Of course it is still advantageous to keep the switching interval as close to instantaneous as possible, because audio memory is fleeting.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Arnold B. Krueger on 2009-07-28 20:20:56
But the thing that spawned this current exhange was the assertion that one would likely be more artsy (or flakey) and less "scientific" (or smart or rational) to have a preference for vinyl.


It probably helps to take a step back. This is really about music and media. Supposedly, we listen to music beause we like music. Alternatively, one might like a particular medium, less so than want to enjoy the music.

If your primary interest is music, then of course you want to  listen to the most accurate form of the music which is of course live music. Since that is often difficult or impossible, us music lovers fall back on listening to music via some medium.

Comparing and contrasting the LP and CD mediums, let us first agree that both mediums force us to resort to the process of micing and mixing, which in and of itself dramatically changes the sound of the music. This problem is common to both the LP and the CD, and sequel mediums, which are now common. Most newer mediums behave more like the CD than the LP as typically used.

Now, actualy comparing just the 2 mediums, we should agree that the CD medium can deliver a near-perfect or functionally perfect presentation of whatever we miced and mixed. The LP medium is highly sonically instrusive, and that is not an opinion, it is a scientifically provable fact.

Therefore, if your interest is primarily listening to music, and not primarily listening to the sonic and experiencing the other non-sonic properties of the medium, then the CD is the logical, scientific choice.


Where is the data in the form of bias controlled listening tests to support this hypothesis?


None needed. The hypothesis is based on logic. The logic is based on facts that have been determined with bias-controlled listening tests.

Quote
this would require that we have the original musicians in the original venue as a reference.


Not true. In order to determine that the CD format is sonically transparent, all we need is a represenative number of demanding sound sources such as other recordings, to use as a reference. If the CD format is capable of rendering them so perfectly that we can't tell the difference between the CD copy and the origional in a bias-controlled test, then we know that the CD format is sonically transparent. This has been done many times. You *could* do it for yourself if you wished, using only common audio utility programs, even freeware programs.  This sort have test has been done with high speed master tapes, high sample rate commercial recordeings, LPs, other CDs, live sounds, etc.

In order to determine that the LP format is *not* sonically trasnparent, all we have to notice is the rather obvious sonic mayhem that is clearly audible on every LP when played back on a good audio system. Measurements that anybody with a suitable test record and a PC with some common analytical software backs that up.  Note that neither the obviously audible sonic mayhem present on every LP, nor the rediculously bad measurements are present on CDs. The sonic mayhem present on every LP is so gross that we can even measure it on every digital transcription of every LP that any of us has ever examined. If you can transcribe a LP into a digital file for use to examine, please be our guest and upload said file.

Failure to upload a file that lacks the usual sonic mayhem that the LP format applies to every piece of music ever recorded to LP would be an effective concession of the above points by you. Enjoy!


Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: 2Bdecided on 2009-07-28 20:51:47
Well Jee wiz excuse me for not wanting to steel the hard work done by small labels that go the extra mile in the mastering.
But if I can make a better CD at home than the one they've released, they hardly went "the extra mile" on the CD mastering, did they?

And you're talking to someone with a half decent turntable, and over 10,000 records.

I am an anachronism - physical media is dead - what century are you living in?

Quote
I'll give you credit though you have almost reluctantly acknowledged that in some cases one can get better sound from a commercial LP than it's commercial CD counterpart.
Your condescension is noted.

No one debated this. The point is that the better sound could and should be on the CD. Any company who intentionally make the vinyl better (which actually means they made the CD worse) doesn't deserve any custom.

Take note of Canar's reply.

And think: just because in your little world everyone shares the same strange world view doesn't make it right - you can lose the attitude - though a step into reality might be too much of a shock for you at present.

Cheers,
David.
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: MichaelW on 2009-07-28 23:38:52
analog scott

Some people would rather get the "superior" vinyl copied to CD or digital file by someone else, and use that.


Well Jee wiz excuse me for not wanting to steel the hard work done by small labels that go the extra mile in the mastering.


HA is decidedly hostile to piracy: the suggestion was not that anyone should steal work, but rather that for most people it would be better to buy the LP, have it digitized by someone with the appropriate good equipment, and then play the digital version whilst enjoying the 12" album art (which is an area where vinyl is undoubtedly superior). In other words, get the good quality digital version that the funky little label should have released in the first place (less, of course, the bad effects of vinyl mayhem).
Title: Vinyl vs Digital and 24 bit vs 16 bit from vinyl.
Post by: Bugs.Bunny on 2011-01-23 12:13:07
Not sure if this has been posted here elsewhere already - Record grooves under an electron microscope
http://www.synthgear.com/2010/audio-gear/r...ron-microscope/ (http://www.synthgear.com/2010/audio-gear/record-grooves-electron-microscope/)